Mahmoud: Erdogan's policy, his government was to consecrate mentality based on genocide, ethnic cleansing

QAMISHLO

The Spokesperson for the People's Protection Units Nouri Mahmoud delivered a speech at the International Forum on Ethnic Cleansing and Demographic Change in Afrin, in which he documented many violations committed by the Turkish occupation state in Afrin during the second session, which focused on the military aspect of ethnic cleansing and demographic change in Afrin.

Mahmoud said, "As known, the Legitimate Defense Units were founded on the basis of social harmony and local custom in Afrin and the principles of the Syrian revolution after the outbreak of the revolution in Syria following the collapse of the security situation in the country by the regime on one hand, and those who call themselves" the Free Army" on the other hand. This military conflict resulted in shedding blood and chaos all over the countries, so the option was to take a third way. This was the establishment of the legitimate defense forces through organizing districts and villages in consultation with the local population, these consultations were translated and ratified by "House of People's Council" which was supervising the villages and neighborhoods in Afrin and its countryside."

He added, "Following the liberation of the city from the forces of the regime, the People Protection Units (YPG) was established on July 19, 2012. Immediately after this announcement, a social and moral law was legislated to legitimize the Self-Defense Forces. The establishment of this military defense body in Afrin was based on local legislation and in line with the standards of international laws in war and peace, those conventions relating to war crimes, the Geneva Conventions and human rights standards, and take from 51 of the Charter of the United Nations in chapter VII of the need for the right of the individuals and groups to defend themselves against any armed force."

Nouri Mahmoud noted, "The function of the Self-Defense Forces within the local area was concentrated in the geography of Afrin and was exclusively committed to defend the local population based on the legislative authority of the local councils. It was committed to protect the local population while receiving a very large percentage of the displaced persons fleeing the hell of the conflicts between the extremist terrorist factions and the regime forces in most of the Syrian areas."

And at the same time stressed the non-proliferation of weapons and armed manifestations indiscriminately among the local population to avoid the spread of random fragmented faction tendency as in the rest of the areas and to ensure, as far as possible, a stable climate in order for civil institutions to function effectively without military intervention. This was the general situation in Afrin before the Turkish army, its mercenaries and jihadist gangs' occupying the city and imposing its hegemony on the city and its countryside in a terrible and brutal manner.

The pretext of the occupation of Afrin

He continued, "In the text of the message sent to the United Nations by the representatives of the Turkish Foreign Ministry in order to gain legitimacy for the implementation of the occupation project in Afrin came under the pretext of the direct danger threat to the Turkish national security, taking advantage of Chapter VII of Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, while "Chapter VII" Article 51 completely opposed the Turkish pretext for two reasons:

1- There is no concrete physical evidence regarding the breach of the border and the occurrence of military clashes between the parties. The presence of the apartheid wall between Afrin area and the Turkish state, which is 4 meters high along the parallel border with Afrin, does not allow for any kind of violations of the Turkish national security, as well as the existence of barbed wire, the laying of mines and all kinds of sophisticated military technology on the border. This Turkish justification in front of the Security Council and the United Nations directly contradicts the facts on the ground ie, there has been a public circumvention of international law by Erdogan and his gangs.

2. The Security Council, the United Nations, the European Union and other international legal councils have not delegated the Turkish State to implement its occupation plan for Afrin. Thus, the Turkish State has blatantly violated international law based on its occupation of Afrin to the logic of force and the permissible violence.

Nouri Mahmoud said in the context of his speech, "If we refer to the military institution of the Turkish state, which is part of the NATO, we will make sure that the legal authorization by NATO to its ally did not violate the legal authorization for this process, but Erdogan and his team repeatedly threatened to blow up the refugee crisis in the face of the European Union and the West in return for being silent about the occupation of Afrin. From this side Erdogan and his gangs manipulated with a dirty political image of the NATO law itself, using all kinds of weapons and techniques provided by NATO. We have seen pictures of German tanks in Afrin and they are documented by the international legal and media institutions, which led to the explosion of a political crisis in the moral life of political and parliamentary life in Germany."

"While Erdogan invested in the local scale according to the claims of national security to mobilize this process against Afrin using the extremist religious propaganda and nationalist racism, while the majority of the bombings and violations that were launched from the Syrian territory against the Turkish interior, as the direct threat according to the Turkish version came from the jihadist gangs. There was no penetration of Turkey against Afrin by the YPG directly. Therefore, rather than targeting the armed groups in Turkey, in order to preserve the Turkish national security and the Turkish society, in cooperation with these jihadist factions, it targeted the city of Afrin and its legitimate defensive forces.

Terrorist groups participated in the occupation of Afrin

The spokesman of the People Protection Units (YPG) Nuri Mahmoud added, "It was clear to the public opinion and the international and local media scenes from Afrin city by the mercenary gangs of the Turkish army, launching jihadist propaganda and racist tendencies in preparation for the campaign of genocide against Afrin. From here, we must identify those groups that claim to operate under the banner of the "Free Army" on the one hand, and the Turkish special groups operating outside Turkish and international law at the same time. Both these organizations work outside international and domestic law and are fallen under the category of terrorism to the NATO, the Security Council and the United Nations. Prior to the occupation of Afrin, Erdogan was meeting in extraordinary session with the National Security Council, with the security and military leaders in the presence of the special official of Erdogan's security the called "Adnan Tanri Fardi who runs a company to recruit criminal offenders and some retired military figures and adventure groups to spread terror and murder in a company called "Sadad", where this company led by Adnan Tanri has recruited tens of thousands of the mercenary gangs fighting for wages. This company is illegal according to the Turkish constitution. That is, it works out of the domestic and international law. Thus, it invested the name of the Turkish military official to implement the agenda and ethnic cleansing and demographic change in Afrin. "

And added, "While the identity of local groups operating under the banner of the "Free Army" itself has been systematically covered, but it is actually categorized as pure jihadist faction, and is mentioned as "Samarqnd, Ahrar al-Sham, al-Jabha al-Shamiya, Ahrar al- Sharqiya, Firqet al-Hamzat, Liwa al-Mutasem, Jaish al-Fatah, Jaish Ahfad, al-Sultan Murad, al-Sultan Othman, Sulaiman Shah, most of them were members of Jabhet al-Nusra and Daesh organizations, and the majority of the terrorist groups are accused of committing war crimes, looting, stealing the civilians' property in Syria  and the infrastructure and transferring them to Turkey. All these documented by the international organizations. Accordingly, Erdogan and his team used these gangs to occupy and exterminate Afrin, establishing a method of ethnic cleansing in line with his vision of devoting the jihadist racist project, a flagrant violation of international law, war crimes, violations against humanity and a direct threat to the international peace and security in order to revive terrorism again from the gate of the city of Afrin at the time when the Global Coalition is fighting the remnants of terrorism in the east of the Euphrates.

War crimes have been committed in Afrin

Nuri Mahmoud mentioned many violations committed by the Turkish occupation saying, "The campaign launched by the Turkish armed forces in coordination with the special forces that used the extremist factions and gangs that committed war crimes and violations against humanity began on 20 January this year to implement a systematic policy against Afrin and its defensive forces through a series of organized crimes that strike the international law and the Geneva Conventions, war crimes law and the human rights system, including crimes committed by the armed groups targeting the civilians in Afrin city's districts and villages with internationally prohibited weapons using "chlorine gas" in the village of Aranda in the area of Shia.  these cases were documented by the Health Council and the Red Crescent in the city of Afrin, and that the occupying forces carried out a terrible policy against the civilians and the defense forces; killing the prisoners in public in front of the cameras and mutilation of the bodies of (YPG, YPJ)'s fighters and good example of that is the mutilation of what happened to the body of the martyr Barin Kobani as that was the horrific violation of the Third Geneva Convention related to the treatment of captives in the armed conflict.

Ethnic cleansing and demographic change have been systematic

As for the demographic changes, Mahmoud said: "According to the figures recorded in the city of Afrin before the occupation of Afrin, the population of the city of Afrin and its countryside with the displaced from the Syrian regions reached about one million. It is clear that the Turkish military forces and terrorist groups have not been able to advance on the military fronts in a month. They followed a systematic policy to implement the policy of ethnic cleansing through the terrible aerial bombardment of civilians deployed in villages and towns in preparation for the displacement of the civilians and gathering of them inside the city of Afrin to exterminate them in the city. In parallel, they were bombing schools, hospitals and mosques and striking the vital sources of water and ancient monuments and the environment."

Nuri Mahmoud noted, "After displacing of the civilians from the countryside, they fled the aerial bombardments and gathered them in the city. The Turkish air force, artillery and tanks indiscriminately shelled the civilians without any discrimination. The people were put under pressure in front of two options compulsory; the deportation or direct exposure to physical extermination and many cases were recorded, including mass killings by targeting the civilians' vehicles on forced deportation methods.  The victims of these operations were mostly women, the elderly and children, as well as the "massacre of al-Mahmudiya in the city of Afrin" and "Avrin Hospital" and the "neighborhood of Terenda."

After occupying Afrin and its countryside, the Turkish army concentrated in strategic points in the countryside of Afrin and the city, while it let those militant jihadist gangs to abuse the city and its countryside through the implementation of an organized policy through the total theft of public and private properties, the kidnapping of civilians for ransom, the violation of women's honor, and imposing religious uniform on the Yazidi women in the Yezidi villages, while they were targeting the graves and historical sites and imposing the symbols of the Turkish nationality and the extremist religious slogans in addition to replacing the names of squares and streets by the names of the leaders of the Turkish state such as "Erdogan Square in the center of the city of Afrin." Moreover, olive trees were also targeted as part of the policy of destroying infrastructure and the economy as a form of starving the population. They have prevented independent humanitarian rights and media to access to transfer the facts, and spread the concept of fear and terror through the disruption of security in the city and its countryside in order to impose forced displacement on the local population in preparation for the resettlement of families of jihadist gangs coming from other parts of the country, and motivate them to submit Turkish nationality.

At the end of his speech, the spokesman of the People Protection Units (YPG) Nuri Mahmoud said, "Erdogan and his gangs's policy was to consecrate the mindset of the Turkish state based on the genocide and ethnic cleansing, even if we remember the project of the Reformative East in Turkey by cleansing the Kurdish areas in the western Euphrates in1936, we will realize that this strategy is still rooted in the mind of Turkish power to this moment, and it is not forgotten that the mentality of the Union and the Promotion practiced massacres against the Armenians and other components within Turkey, as well as the occupation of the northern Cyprus island by Turkey, in violation of international law. This systematic policy according to the legal vision falls within the scope of genocide and ethnic cleansing. We believe that ethnic cleansing "forced displacement" is part of the organized genocide aimed at destroying the political, cultural and environmental structure of a component that wants to defend its existence in accordance with international law and the human rights system. These egregious violations are completely contrary to international conventions such as the Geneva Conventions and war crimes and crimes against humanity, and therefore, legal accountability must be held against the Turkish military and security system and its associated jihadist factions."

(T/H)

ANHA