ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Turkey’s operation in Kurdish-controlled northern Syria must be stopped as it destabilizes the region and risks allowing an Islamic State (ISIS) resurgence, the European Parliament said Thursday, calling for a UN-backed safe zone along the Turkey-Syria border.
“MEPs strongly condemned the unilateral Turkish military intervention in northeast Syria, urging Turkey to withdraw all of its forces from Syrian territory,” the European Parliament said in a statement Thursday.
The parliament adopted a resolution by a show of hands calling on Turkey to halt it offensive as it violates international law and undermines the stability and security of northern Syria.
Operation Peace Spring commenced its land phase on October 9 with the stated aim of pushing Kurdish forces back 32 kilometers from Turkey’s southern border. Ankara plans to resettle up to three million Syrian refugees currently hosted by Turkey inside this “peace corridor”.
Turkey considers the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to be the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed group fighting for greater political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey.
The Turkish incursion has displaced more than 300,000 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and more than 200 civilians have been killed.
A US-brokered ceasefire on October 17 put the operation on hold for 120 hours. In theory, the operation has been halted.
A Turkey-Russia deal on October 22 reportedly gave Turkey what it wanted, halting the incursion.
Despite the agreement, the SDF on Thursday accused Turkey of violating the truce, calling on guarantors including the US to hold Turkey accountable.
Turkey has established a “safe zone” in the areas it has conquered.
MEPs in the European Parliament, however, rejected the Turkish safe zone, calling for a United Nations-brokered zone in its place.
They firmly reject Turkish plans to establish “a so-called safe zone” along the border in north-east Syria and expressed concern that the US-Turkish agreement on a temporary ceasefire might legitimize the Turkish occupation of this “safe zone”.
“MEPs advocate that a UN-led security zone should be established in northern Syria,” the parliament statement said.
The parliament’s statement is broadly in tune with recommendations made by German defense minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer on Monday.
“This [UN-backed] security zone would seek to resume the fight against terror and against the Islamic State, which has currently come to a standstill,” Karrenbauer told Deutsche Welle.
“It would also ensure that we stabilize the region so that rebuilding civilian life is once again possible, and so that those who have fled can also return voluntarily.”
Mazloum Kobani Abdi, commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, told reporters in Qamishli on Thursday the Kurdish forces support the plan.
“We demand and agree to this,” he said.
MEPs are “extremely concerned” that hundreds of ISIS prisoners have escaped from camps, “which increases the risk of a resurgence of the terrorist group”.
They are also concerned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s threat to flood Europe with Syrian refugees.
“MEPs find it unacceptable that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has weaponized refugees and ‘used them to blackmail the EU’,” the MEPs said, calling for targeted sanctions and visa bans against Turkish officials “for human rights abuses”.
“MEPs also propose that suspending trade preferences in the agricultural products agreement should be considered and as a last resort, the suspension of the EU-Turkey Customs Union.”
Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Erdogan, however, rejected the MEPs’ statement and renewed their threat to flood Europe with refugees.
“We are not surprised by the decision of those who host terrorists in their parliament constantly,” the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.
“We are facing an international fight, are not we? The seven great powers usually attack [us], and we have resisted and will continue resisting against the seven great powers,” Erdogan said Thursday, speaking in Ankara.
He said he briefed many countries before launching Operation Peace Spring but “they were even irritated by only telling them”.
Erdogan criticized the European Parliament for calling for a no-fly zone over northern Syria when world powers had resisted his calls for a no-fly zone when the Syrian regime was killing civilians in the 2011 uprising.
