Al-Abed:Resettlement of refugees in occupied territories is step to perpetuate occupation

Recently, the statements of officials in the Turkish occupation state, led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, about building settlements for Syrian refugees in the areas it occupies from Syria in Jarablus, Al-Bab, Girê Spî, Serêkaniyê and Afrin, in cooperation with other countries, in a move to deport approximately one million Syrian refugees initially and resettlement in those areas to change their demographics.

 And media close to the Turkish authorities had reported that the Turkish scheme had the support of the United Nations, the European Union and Gulf countries.

 In fact, Qatari and Kuwaiti associations provide support to Turkey in building settlements in occupied Afrin, and some sources spoke of support from Germany.

 On the other hand, voices denouncing these statements rose in north and east Syria, considering them to perpetuate the occupation and the international community's repudiation of its responsibilities to prevent the construction of settlements and the settlement of displaced persons and refugees in the lands of the displaced.

 Hamid al-Abed, the co-chair of the Girê Spi district council, denounced these statements by saying: "The lands that Turkey is talking about are Syrian lands that it occupied by force of arms, taking advantage of the internal crisis that Syria is experiencing and the international silence, and it has no right to decide the fate of the Syrians or where they live."

 No position was issued by the Damascus government, despite its repeated talk about Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity.

 He added, "The Turkish occupation state had the largest role in the Syrian crisis and transformed it from peaceful to military by supporting mercenary groups with weapons to serve their colonial plans, and thus causing the displacement of hundreds of thousands from their homes to escape the ongoing war, which Turkey later worked on exploiting the "refugee card "Politically and economically, it has become a threat to the international community to legitimize the occupation of neighboring countries under the pretext of establishing a safe area for the return of refugees."

 Hamid considered the recent statements of Turkish officials a step to perpetuate the occupation, calling on the international community to intervene and prevent the Turkish occupation state from building settlements in the areas it usurped from Syria, and to work to secure the region for the return of the indigenous people who were displaced by the Turkish occupier from their homes instead of supporting Turkey in its move for demographic change housing the displaced in place of the original people of that area.

 The Turkish occupation, after its brutal aggression on northern and eastern Syria on the 9th of October 2019, displaced more than 100,000 people from Girê Spî canton and its countryside, suffering from difficult living and material conditions after leaving their homes and sources of livelihood, distributed in the areas of Raqqa and Tabqa and their countryside, while  about 6,000 IDPs live in Girê Spî camp in the northern countryside of Raqqa city.

 In the context, the displaced Ahmed Al-Zaim said: “The Turkish occupation state has expelled us from our homes by force of arms and we will resist to liberate them. As for building settlements in our areas, this is unacceptable, and the first thing for the international community is to work to end the occupation of our areas in a way that guarantees a safe return for us to our homes instead of helping the Turkish occupier by building settlements to resettle displaced people from other Syrian regions in our regions.”

 Since its occupation of the Syrian regions, the Turkish occupation state has followed a policy of demographic change by displacing the indigenous population, bringing in the families of its mercenaries and housing them in the homes of the displaced. It has also built several settlements in the occupied canton of Afrin with Gulf funds and extremist Islamic organizations after confiscating the properties of the displaced.

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 ANHA