Halted Turkish Aggression in Northern Syria Continues

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

Deals struck by the US and Russia with Turkey aided and abetted Erdogan's land grab aggression in northern Syria.

It's what his campaign is all about, unrelated to phony claims about protecting Turkish security and expressing concern about Syrian refugees he doesn't give a hoot about.

His rap sheet includes deplorable high crimes, notably cross-border aggression, support for ISIS and other jihadists, internal repression, and human exploitation, notably affecting Syrian refugee adults and children, ruthlessly exploited in Turkey for profit.

An earlier Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (B&HRRC) report said hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in Turkey, children and adults, are paid sub-poverty wages with no benefits for the country's largely unregulated textile industry.

The National Labor Committee (NLC) explained that "(t)ransnational corporations roam the world to find the cheapest and most vulnerable workers" – exploiting them as serfs under deplorable conditions, their rights, welfare, safety and dignity ignored.

State-permitted sweatshop conditions exist in many third world and developing countries, Turkey a notorious example, a hugely repressive police state, profiting from human misery.

Erdogan's regime has been forcibly deporting Syrian refugees cross-border to active conflict areas — dumping them in harm's way against their will, forcing them to sign documents, saying they left voluntarily, likely in Turkish they can't read or understand.

Amnesty International (AI) quoted a father of eight, saying "I felt like I was between heaven and hell. I just wanted to arrive somewhere." 

"I was just waiting for it to end. Imagine spending 26 hours on a bus, with just one glass of water and half a sandwich. And every two hours (police) would come to hit us and wake us up."

Turkish authorities falsely claim they deport no one against their will. Refugees forced from the country tell a different story, exploited while there, then dumped when no longer wanted.

AI: Ankara claims "more than 315,000 Syrians have left of their own free will. Syrians, however, consistently say they are being misled about the 'voluntary return' forms they are being told to sign, or intimidated or beaten in order to make them sign." 

"Some people say they were also beaten on the journey to the border by the gendarmerie. All the deportees said they were sent to northwestern Syria (either Idlib or Aleppo provinces)…"

"Most of the deportees were men, but some children and families were also deported. Even when it is only the breadwinner who is deported, sometimes the family members left in Turkey feel unable to survive, and subsequently leave for Syria themselves." 

"If people re-enter Turkey – almost invariably by paying large sums to smugglers – they find that their Temporary Protection IDs have been cancelled." 

"It appears impossible to renew these documents, even with the aid of lawyers, leaving people trapped in their homes, without access to essential services…"

Brussels gave Erdogan billions of dollars to take in Syrian refugees EU ruling authorities want kept out of their countries — notably ones complicit with US aggression responsible for the gravest refugee crisis since WW II.

AI's concern for Syrian refugees is one thing, denouncing their forced deportations from Turkey to Syrian territory controlled by jihadists Ankara supports, as well as other active conflict areas — creating a greater a "humanitarian nightmare" than already, civilians placed "in imminent and mortal danger from (ongoing) violence." 

At the same time throughout the war, AI falsely blamed Damascus for US-led aggression on the Syrian Arab Republic and its people, using ISIS and likeminded jihadists as imperial foot soldiers — responsible for CW attacks, beheadings and countless other atrocities.

Separately on Thursday, Syrian media reported that Turkish aggression continues, aided by jihadist mercenaries, including against Syrian Arab Army forces and civilians in harm's way, causing deaths, injuries, and destruction — Turkish troops looting shops, other business and residential homes.

On the same day, Syrian's UN envoy Bashar al-Jaafari denounced Turkish aggression and occupation of his country's territory during a Security Council session, adding:

The Erdogan regime "brought, supported, trained and armed thousands of terrorists, among them those foreigners who came from more them 100 states according to UN reports, facilitating their infiltration through borders."

Jaafari also condemned his exploitation and other abuses against Syrian refugees, using them "to boost his expansionist greed in the region…blackmail(ing) Europe" for blood money to take them.

During the session, Russia's UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia said the "Memorandum of Understanding" agreed to by Putin and Erdogan "was signed…to stabilize the situation" in northeastern Syria, adding:

"When making this arrangement, we proceeded from the assumption that both Turks and Syrians as neighbors should jointly be protecting the 'tranquility line' while accounting for interests of each other."

The agreement aims to "terminate active military phase of the Turkish operation and to deploy Syrian border-control officers at the border with Turkey."

The "solution to the issue with aspirations of Kurds, who constitute an inalienable part of multiethnic Syrian community, is impossible without restored control of the Syrian government over the entire national territory and border." 

"We stand ready to continuously assist the Syrian authorities and Kurds in establishing a broad dialogue on relevant issues."

"As guarantors to the Astana process, Russia and Turkey have reiterated commitment to continue, together with Iran, our search for a political solution to the Syrian conflict."

Nebenzia said nothing about forced Turkish deportations of Syrian refugees, nothing about continued Turkish aggression, reported by Syrian media, nothing about Erdogan's revanchist aims.

US-launched aggression against Syria and its people is in its 9th year, northern and southern parts of the country still occupied by Pentagon troops and CIA operatives — despite Trump's vow to exit US forces from the country last January and earlier this month.

They remain despite hundreds shifted cross-border to Iraq where they're not wanted.

The US came to all its war theaters to stay — directly and/or by installed puppet regimes serving its interests.

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html