Kurdish fighters in northern Syria have served as a crucial ally of the United States in the fight against the Islamic State. But American troop withdrawal from the region has abandoned the allies in a face of extreme danger.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced his intention to create a "twenty-mile buffer zone" in northeastern Syria, an area now controlled by the Kurdish and Arab Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). He has also conducted a diplomatic offensive to get promises of non-interference from Russia, Iran, and the US for his invasion of Syria. "The Turkish government wants to rule alone under the banner of fighting terrorism," said Ahmed in an e-mail interview to ANI.

"The Turkish state and the policies managed by Turkish President Erdogan under the banner of returning Syrian refugees to their country has caused a movement of displacement and asylum within Syrian territories. This process aims to demographic change and forced displacement, whether the displacement of indigenous people of the area or the resettlement of other families instead of them," she added.

Kurds, members of a large, predominantly Muslim ethnic group with their own cultural and linguistic traditions, were promised to be provided with their own homeland after World War I. But a later agreement instead divided them among Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. Turkey, in the current scenario, has already stationed around tens of thousands of troops, tanks, and heavy artillery along the Syrian border. US President Donald Trump had initially announced a US troops withdrawal from Syria in 2018, after a call from Erdogan. After another call with Erdogan in October 2019, Trump once again announced a US pull-out from northeast Syria, a decision which was condemned by both the Republicans as well as the Democrats who remain opposed to the withdrawal, the US-based Genocide Watch said in one of its reports.

"This campaign started long ago," Ahmed said with discontent, adding that the state, since then, has been trying to displace the Kurds and empty their areas to resettle families of mercenaries that cooperated with Turkey to occupy Syrian territories, including families of the terrorist organisation Islamic State (ISIS), bringing fighters and their families from Idlib. "Turkey wants to establish a corridor on its borders from families of mercenaries and Turkmen.

This process aims to demographic change and forced displacement, whether the displacement of indigenous people of the area or the resettlement of other families instead of them," the leader stressed. She further stated that the safe area claimed by Turkey is essentially "a region to annihilate peoples and what has been called the Spring of Peace process is in fact the source of terrorism, killing, abandoning and plundering the indigenous peoples of the region." In addition, all indigenous people, who were displaced, however, cannot return to their homes because of Turkey's policies that prevent their return, the leader told ANI.

"The Justice and Development Government, led by Erdogan, have further instructed the fighters associated with it to rule the Kurdish areas in Afrin with iron and fire until they lose all their capabilities and preventing them from returning to their homes," she said.

The above remarks made by the Kurdish leader directly expose the doublefacedness and duality of the Erdogan government, which instead of safeguarding the refugees at its border, is bent on peddling vile attacks against India over its socalled "human rights crisis" in Kashmir. Such plans have raised alarm in humanitarian circles, where advocates fear that refugees will be forcibly returned to a conflict zone in violation of international law.

As per reports provided by the United Nations' Human Rights Watchdog (HRW), at least 70,000 Syrians were already displaced because of the latest escalation in the conflict.

(ANI)