Turkey exploiting Turkmens to strike the Kurds and settle in their lands
Northern Syria – North-Press Agency
Afrin Post”, a media network has published a special report on "Turkey's settlement efforts in Afrin and its exploitation of Turkmen people for this purpose", where the network pointed out that, the Turkmen associations and organizations sponsored by Turkey have recently become very active in Afrin region, as part of its efforts to make the Turkmen spearhead in the "settlement operations in the Kurdish region of Afrin".
On August 23, Turkmens who came from Homs, Hama, Damascus and the Golan met with the Syrian Turkmen Council in Ankara in order to be settled in the Syrian-Kurdish region of Afrin instead of the original Kurdish people.
The report added that, "The Turkish occupation seeks to create new conflicts in the region on the basis of ethnicity, through the settlement of a component in place of another component after displacing it forcibly".
In this context, the Kurdish writer Baderkhan Ali told Afrin “Afrin Post” that, "The increasing number of militants from Homs within the ranks of the militias of the so-called the Syrian National Army is mainly due to the Turkmen origins of these militants".
Ali said that, "the Turkmen issue has been created in Syria in recent years just to confront the rising Kurdish issue, where there has never been a Turkmen issue or a problem over the past decades".
"Of course not all Turkmens have been exposed to this Turkish open game, there is a Turkmen component within the SDF and the Autonomous Administration in Syria, in addition to the Turkmen component in Manbij which raises its voice publicly with the people of Manbij against Turkish threats to occupy Manbij", he stated.
The report noted that, in the context of Turkey's efforts to change the demography of the region since its invasion of Afrin in March 2018, the Turkish authorities have granted identity cards intended for foreigners to the local population in Afrin.
So, The Syrian-Kurdish identity of Afrin was changed by its Turkish one, Reuters News Agency had said earlier: "Turkey began opening Afrin schools and teaching the students Turkish language. There are signs in Turkish language and a police force trained by Turkey and a Turkish post office".
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Political Research said: "Erdogan dreams of returning the Ottoman Empire, and Afrin could be the first step". The Turkish procedures were also commented on by Michael Rubin of the American "Enterprise" Institute of Public Political Research saying: "Erdogan wants to repeat Saddam's experience in Kirkuk".
In a previous article published by the institute, Rubin described what Erdogan's forces are doing in Afrin as a "war of genocide" and "ethnic cleansing", by saying: "Turkey killed 10,000 Syrian Kurds and displaced 180,000 of them, reminding us of what Saddam Hussein did in Kirkuk", adding: "Erdogan’s dreams of returning the Ottoman Sultanate, and Afrin may be the first step".