In a move, which has shocked the international community, US president Trump has betrayed the Kurds of Northern Syria by withdrawing US ground troops which act as a buffer against an expansionist genocidal Turkish state. It is now almost inevitable that Turkey will expand its policy of ethnic cleansing and displacement which it began in the Afrin canton to the entire Syria border region and perhaps much deeper into Syrian territory.
18,000 ISIS combatants likely to escape
This cowardly act, seemingly on the whim of President Trump who has personal property interests in Istanbul, came after a phone call on Sunday evening with Turkey’s President Erdogan. It will hand a victory to ISIS after the Kurds and their allies sacrificed thousands of lives to contain the jihadist death cult. Trump’s betrayal of the Kurds means ss many as 18,000 Daesh combatants are likely to escape into the region, likely to join Erdogan’s forces as many already have or return to Europe to commit terrorist atrocities in London, Paris and Berlin.
Morally repugnant
The move has been met with widespread condemnation from across the political spectrum even from domestic allies such as Senator Lindsey Graham
Senator Marco Rubio was equally strident calling the move ‘morally repugnant’.
In the UK, Labour Party MP’s were quick to speak out with Lloyd-Russell Moyle using an urgent question in the Commons to call for the suspension of intelligence sharing to defend an area that shares our values of promoting democracy, gender equality and is our ally.
The all-party parliamentary group on Rojava which Lloyd Russel Moyle also chairs has issued a call for the UK to stand against’ NATO member’s invasion of northern Syria.
Whitehouse betrayal
Emily Thornberry the Shadow Foreign Secretary in a statement to Parliament said that this move was one of the many ‘great and unmatched’ ways in which Donald Trump has shamed the office of US President these past three years.
“The Kurdish people have fought harder than anyone else in Syria to end the territorial grip that ISIS had established in Northern Syria, and they have paid a heavy price. Today’s announcement from the White House is not just an abandonment of their allies, but a betrayal of their sacrifice.”Emily Anne Thornberry MP – Shadow Foreign Secretary
Humanitarian catastrophe
Trump’s betrayal of the Kurds will have a deep and lasting impact not only on the region but the world. There are roughly five million civilians in the region, we are on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe that will far outstrip Turkey’s war crimes against the population of Afrin or its own internal war against the Kurdish population of Turkey that led to tanks, jets and attack helicopters levelling towns in Southern Turkey in 2015.
Turkey illegally used napalm against the native inhabitants of Afrin and then displaced them using Jihadi mercenaries, replacing them with the families of Jihadist groups fighting in the region including ISIS.
British volunteer Anna Campbell was killed by Turkish jets in the defence of Afrin. There is no reason to expect that this will not be replicated on an unimaginably greater scale. Erdogan will then use the Jihadists he has rehomed in Kurdish areas as bargaining chips to threaten Europe just as he has with Syrian refugees.
What you can do
Time is now short with the invasion possibly underway at the time of writing, so it’s critical that maximum pressure is applied to our elected representatives either in writing or on the streets. You can use this resource to write to your elected official, sign this petition or join upcoming demonstrations such as this one on Sunday the 13th in London.
#RiseUp4Rojava
It’s vital that the international community does not fall into silence on Trump’s betrayal of the Kurds, tweet to your elected representatives using #RiseUp4Rojava