US senators, experts condemn Turkey in Syria
WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D, Maryland), speaking on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, reaffirmed his determination to pass legislation to impose sanctions on Turkey and “hold it accountable” for its unprovoked assault on northeast Syria, as well as Ankara’s purchase of the advanced Russian air defense missile system, the S-400.
Militias supported by Turkey include individuals with ties to al-Qaida and al-Nusra, and they are carrying out ethnic cleansing, Van Hollen stated. He noted that Amb. James Jeffrey, US Special Representative for Syria Engagement and Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, recently testified to Congress that the State Department was investigating war crimes for which they were responsible.
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Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R, Tennessee) also spoke at the event, which was organized by the Washington Kurdish Institute. She noted that despite the sharp polarization that now characterizes Washington, “support for the Kurds is a bipartisan issue.”
She stressed that it is important that “we remember who our allies are in this fight, and the Kurds have been our consistent ally.”
Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has said he would not attack Kobani, but she warned that he just might do so. “It’s important for Turkey and Russia to know that the US is watching,” and “their actions are unacceptable.”
Blackburn also explained this “is not just a Syrian or Syrian Kurdish issue,” but involves the whole of the Middle East, and even beyond.
“I was in Djibouti and Mogadishu last weekend,” she said, and “as you look at how ISIS has metastasized and how they are using proxies,” it is vitally important to ensure that prisoners held by the Syrian Kurdish forces do not escape.
Sen. Mark Warner (Virginia), the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, complained that “one phone call” had “undermined our Kurdish allies, completely caught the American military, the American intelligence community totally off-guard, and threw the area into chaos.”
This “will be a disaster for American foreign policy for decades to come,” he warned.
“How do we go back to allies, or potential allies, in a very troubled region and say, ‘if you align with us,’ then ‘we will stand with you?’”
Ilham Ahmed, President of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), which administers northeast Syria, explained that their region was the most stable and peaceful part of the country. The rest of Syria is controlled by the Assad regime or Islamic extremists.
Citing the ethnic cleansing in northeast Syria, she called on the US to designate as terrorist organizations the Turkish-backed groups responsible for those attacks.
Ahmed also called for representation at the UN peace talks on Syria. The administration of northeast Syria, despite its success, has been excluded. “Friendly countries told us that there is a Turkish veto,” she explained. “But why does everyone accept that?”
After the event, Dr. Amy Holmes, a scholar at Harvard’s Kennedy School, described to Kurdistan 24 the serious flaws in the ceasefire that the US reached with Turkey on Oct. 17.
“The region between Ras al-Ain and Tel Abyad has been essentially ceded to Turkey,” she stated. “President [Donald] Trump hailed this as a success,” because it was supposed to end the fighting.