Kurdish National Council remembers “Arab belt” project in Syria’s Qamishli
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – On Thursday, the Kurdish National Council in Syria (ENKS) organized an event in Girke Lege town, east of Qamishli, against the Arab belt project which the government imposed in 1974 on the Jazira region, northeast Syria.
The Arab belt is a project carried out by the Syrian government according to a study in 1965, with the aim of emptying the Jazira region of the indigenous Kurdish people and settling Arab families from outside the region there.
The Arab belt extended from the Iraqi border, east of Derik, to Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain), north of Hasakah.
Today, June 24, marks the 47th anniversary of the implementation of the Arab belt project by the government in cities, towns and villages in the Jazira region, after a decision was issued by the ” National Command of the Ba’ath Party.”
At the time, the Ba’ath Party decision stipulated the establishing of 40 settlements in the lands near the border line with Turkey and the seizure of lands belonging to the Kurds within an area of approximately 275 kilometers in length and 10-15 kilometers in depth.
The government seized the opportunity to build the Euphrates Dam and the project to redistribute agricultural lands to seize the property of Kurdish farmers in the Jazira.
It established model farms equipped with water, schools, and security protection over more than 700,000 hectares, for more than 4,000 Arab families, whose villages were flooded by the waters of the dam, according to the Violations Documentation Center in northern Syria.
On Thursday, at 11 a.m., the ENKS and residents of the town gathered to condemn the Syrian government’s discrimination project against their region.
The ENKS also held a lecture on the same issue in the city of Qamishli.
The implementation of the project during the reign of Hafez al-Assad was preceded by an exceptional survey in 1962 in the Jazira, during which thousands of Syrian Kurds were stripped of their Syrian citizenship.