The Turkish military, backed by mercenaries, is using the global preoccupation with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to carry out its “expansionist” policy against Kurdish regions in Syria, targeting “places of worship and inhabited villages, in an attempt to force the people to migrate,” Hawar news agency cited Hanna as saying.
Since 2016, Turkey and Turkish-backed forces in Syria have seized control of territory in the north of the country through four military operations mostly targeting the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military wing, the Peoples Protection Units (YPG).
Turkey sees the YPG as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed group that has been at war in Turkey for Kurdish self-rule for four decades. Ankara sees the group as an existential threat and maintains that it needs to prevent the creation of a "terror corridor" along its southern border.
"Since the beginning of this April, the Turkish occupation has escalated its attacks in an effort to commit more crimes,” the SDF spokesman said, citing what he called the targeting of poet Farhad Mardi and the Tel Tamer power station. Mardi was killed in a drone attack today on a car ‘n the Tirbespiye district in Hasakah province, Hawar reported on April 1.
The Tel Tamer power substation in the northwestern countryside of Hasaka went out of service following shelling by the Turkish occupation forces earlier this month, according to Hawar.
The SDF has long accused Turkey-backed fighters of carrying out war crimes against the Kurdish population.
U.N. war crimes investigators in 2020 accused Turkey of turning a blind eye to Syrian rebels it supports in northern Syria, who may have carried out kidnappings, torture and looting of civilian property, according to Reuters.
"We hold the international bodies in north and east Syria responsible for the Turkish violations and we demand the international community to clarify its position on these events within our regions and to highlight a serious position to stop them,” Hanna said.
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