SDC Statement: Third Anniversary of Start of Turkish Aggression in Afrin

Public Statement by the Syrian Democratic Council
January 19, 2021

Tomorrow, January 20, marks the third anniversary of the start of the brutal Turkish aggression on the Syrian region of Afrin, and later its occupation, after a heroic resistance shown by daughters and sons in Afrin for fifty-eight days, to cast its dark shadow over the safe Afrin and to make the Syrian crisis enters a very complex phase.

Turkey behaves as a rogue state, tampers with the security and stability of the region, and violates the international law through its occupation of Syrian lands in order to expand in neighboring countries and violate their sovereignty, in application of its neo-colonial Ottoman model. The occupying Turkish state and its mercenary factions deliberately, and since their entry into the Afrin region, committed crimes against humanity and displaced more than 300,000 residents from their lands and homes, and it implemented a settlement policy for changing the demography of the region and obliterated cultural and historical features that indicate the original identity of Afrin. Their crimes affected people, trees, stones, et cetera, according to the testimony of international humanitarian and human rights organizations.

We as members in the Syrian Democratic Council hold the Syrian regime and the Russian Federation responsible for Turkey’s occupation of Afrin, and we reiterate our emphasis on the priority of its liberation, the safe return of its original inhabitants, the removal of all intruders from it, and the removal of all manifestations of Turkification that Turkey has implemented in the Syrian lands, and we call on the United Nations and the Security Council to form specialized committees to investigate facts and the crimes that were committed by Turkey and its mercenaries in Afrin, and also to bring them to justice and hold them accountable. We assure the Syrian public that the Afrin issue is not exclusive to anyone, but rather a national issue, and the task of liberating Afrin is the responsibility of all Syrians without exception. The Turkish occupation of the Syrian lands has complicated the crisis and damaged the Syrian national unity, and we stress that the solution of the Syrian crisis is through the solidarity of the Syrians and unification their forces to be saved from occupation, terrorism, and tyranny, and to build a decentralized, democratic, pluralistic Syria.  

19 January, 2021, Syrian Democratic Council, North and East Syria