EMEP: Labour Party of Turkey
August 26, 2016
Withdraw from Syria for the War to End!
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
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