Michael Ruben: what we are seeing today is ethnic cleansing

Lately, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan that his country has set on the so-called Voluntary Return of more than million Syrian refugees living in Turkey. these refugees will be sent and be housed in 13 settlements built in the occupied areas in northern Syria, according to the Turkish project.

This is seen as a bid by the Turkish occupation state to continue the demographic change already taking places in areas under Turkish and mercenary occupations. 

To shed light on the issue Michael Ruben, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and who previously worked as an official at the Pentagon, made a statement to ANHA that went as follows:

Erdogan revealed that Ankara is preparing a project for the so-called “voluntary return” of one million Syrians to their country through the establishment of 13 residential areas in Syria that Turkey occupied and built settlements in those areas after the displacement of its original inhabitants. How do you evaluate this? Does this not indicate that there are Turkish efforts to change the demographics in those areas?

Turkey has long waged demographic warfare, but Erdogan has perfected the tactic. Consider, for example, how Turkey threatens to use the threat of refugees flows to extract concessions from Europe.

There is no such thing as a voluntary withdrawal. Syrian refugees in Turkey are told they must "volunteer" or else they will starve. What we are seeing today is ethnic cleansing as stark as when, during World War II, Germany sought to transfer Ukraine's farms to German farmers in the name of lebenstraum.

What are Erdogan's motives for implementing such a project? And why at this exact time? Is there a link between the file of the return of Syrian refugees and the Turkish elections scheduled for 2023?

First, Erdogan harbors a deep racist hatred of the Kurds. He is a Turkish supremacist. He was willing to bury this hatred at times so long as the Kurds would prioritize religion over other elements of national identity. Many Kurds may be Muslims, but Erdogan is so narrow-minded that he cannot accept anyone as a true Muslims unless they uphold the same Muslim Brotherhood-inspired theology that he embraces.

Erdogan is likely talking about acting now for a few reasons. First, expelling refugees may be popular among many Turks ahead of the 2023 elections. Second, Erdogan believes he can get away with this. He rightly sees Joe Biden as weak and indecisive. He feels he can extract a pledge of non-interference in exchange for lifting his veto on Sweden and Finland joining NATO. More broadly, the Western focus on Ukraine and Russia leads Erdogan to think he can get away with murder, whether with regard to the Kurds, Armenians, or others.

What are the repercussions of the American, European and Arab silence on Erdogan's project? Is this evidence that they are partners in the project?

What the West and the Arab world repeatedly fail to realize is that Erdogan takes extreme positions in order to extract concessions while at the same time claiming he compromised. Such compromises are always victories for Erdogan and usually based on the betrayal of the rights of others in the region like Kurds, Cypriots, and Armenians. Rather than assuage Erdogan, however, such compromises only encourage him to seek more and engage in greater atrocity. If the West stood up to Erdogan just once, they could show the world what a weak man he really is, one deserving of mockery rather than concession.

 l..a

ANHA