The shelling of Jarablus targeting ISIS, following the attack on a Kurdish wedding in Gaziantep that took 54 lives, show that the government have not learnt anything from the outcomes of its policy on Syria. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş had stated “What Turkey is suffering today is a result of the policy on Syria”. However, this did not lead to his government giving up its role in fueling the fighting in Syria.
Since the beginning, the government has just said “West of the Euphrates is our red line”, “A Kurdish formation in Northern Syria cannot be allowed”, “A buffer zone should be created at the border” and tried all it can to redraw the Syrian map to suit its own interests; this foreign policy have hit the wall on every occasion, but the Turkish government has not taken a step back from its position regarding Syria.
Nevertheless, the plans drawn up in Ankara have not been realized; Democratic Syrian Forces have passed the red lines, Manjib was taken and the Jarablus corridor besieged. US delegation visits to Turkey in the last two days, the visit of Barzani, the anticipated visit of Putin, the attempted coup, the return of Gülen, the wedding massacre, the Zarrab case; these are indicators of the cards laid on the table for negotiations and to the multi-fronted dirty diplomacy carried out to achieve its aims in Syria. Regardless, the strategy produced outside Syrian borders will not succeed. The government representatives will continue making the same mistakes while stating “we made a mistake”. What we see today is nothing but a different version of the same policy.
The Syria policy of the AKP government brought nothing but misery and death to the peoples of the region. The support provided to armed Jihadi forces brought the conditions of war to within our borders. The result of the government’s Kurdish-phobia has been chaos within the Syrian borders and devastation at home.
Turkey should keep its hands off Syria, stop supporting armed gangs and avoid agreements with imperialist powers, which will continue the bloodbath in the region. Turkey’s insistence to control parts of Syria, interfere with regional maps and the attempted demographic planning mean continued devastation for both Turkish and Syrian populations. The only way to fight these policies of war is the people and workers uniting for peace and democracy. This need has been harshly demonstrated as the International Day of Peace on 21 September approaches. Policies of war must be abandoned, attacks on Syrian lands must cease; borders must be closed to armed reactive forces, imperialists must stop interfering in the region!
This is the way to avoid a mistake in Syria and to protect our country from the results of such a mistake.
Selma Gürkan
Chairwoman