Elbrus Kutrashev told Rudaw’s Bestoon Khalid on October 26 that they have received reports from Afrin and have information from Kurds and others that “there is a process of demographic change. It is done against [the] Kurdish presence there. This is what I call a disaster [against] the local population.”
Kurds have been forced to leave the city and their houses have been given to armed groups, he added in the interview which was aired on Tuesday.
Thousands of indigenous Kurds were forced to flee Afrin when Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies launched Operation Olive Branch on January 20, 2018. By the time Ankara had seized control of the city from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) on March 24, tens of thousands of Kurds had fled, many of them to Kurdish-controlled areas in northeast Syria (Rojava).
The Kurdish population fell by more than 60 percent in only the first two years of the invasion, according to the Afrin-based Human Rights Organization. “According to the latest statistics that we received, the size of the indigenous population of Kurds in the Afrin region reached 34.8 percent in January, while they previously made up 97 percent of the population,” reads a statement from the organization published in April 2020.
According to UN estimates, upwards of 150,000 Kurds have been displaced, most of them displaced to Shahba camp in Tel Rifaat, north of Aleppo.
The Russian diplomat denied that his country has ever held control of Afrin before, saying they have only held the areas surrounding it.
Turkey’s threats
When Turkey took control of Afrin in 2018, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to attack the nearby Tal Rifaat subdistrict as well but this did not happen.
However, Erdogan and other Turkish officials hinted at a new military operation against the YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria last month without specifying the area but Ankara’s officials have anonymously told Reuters that their target is Tal Rifaat.
Tal Rifaat is located in northwest Syria. The city is surrounded by farmlands, located halfway between Aleppo and the Turkish border. The SDF denies any military presence there but local sources have told Rudaw English that the group is there disguised as regime soldiers.
Asked if he thinks Turkey is planning on conducting a new military operation against the SDF in Syria, Kutrashev replied, “probably they are,” adding that the position of Russia on the issue is crystal clear.
“No matter what happens in Syria and Iraq, or any other country, we are against unauthorized foreign intervention,” he said, adding this applies to Turkey as well. “But this doesn’t prevent us from cooperating with [the] Turks in terms of solving Syria’s vital problems on the ground.”
He also said that they have tried to prevent such a military campaign in Syria. “We tried our best in this respect and managed, in joint efforts with other sides, to contain it because we consider it dangerous. But Turks have their [own] agenda. We understand it.”
Russia and Turkey have a “good understanding” in Syria in terms of military, politics and intelligence, according to the diplomat.
“It is important to mention that I can speak about disagreement with Turkey because mostly we agree with them in terms of the current situation in Syria which we both don’t want to deteriorate. There, we disagree on many issues [but] we agree on the main issue - that we have to cooperate. Our cooperation with Turkey is very fruitful [and] successful, and it is ongoing,” said Kutrashev.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a briefing on October 7 that “Syria is a permanent item on the international agenda of the Russia-Turkey dialogue, including at the high and highest levels. Specifically, the case in point is northeastern Syria and Idlib Governorate.”
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned Turkey the previous week that Russia expects them to respect the sovereignty of Syria.
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