Erdogan’s crimes: Osmanly’s hands tainted with the blood of Kurds (Part 3)

Mahmoud al-Batakoushi

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has surpassed his predecessors in persecuting and suppressing the Kurds, whether in his country or in neighboring countries, with attacks and crimes against humanity.

In the third part of the series “Erdogan’s crimes”, we review the massacre of the Kurdish city of Roboski on the Turkish-Iraqi border, in which 34 people were killed in cold blood by Turkish F-16 fighters. The international media documented the massacre by showing pictures of the Kurds, who left their homes in panic, wearing pajamas and picking up the remains of the victims of the horrific massacre. Erdogan said at the time that the perpetrators would be pursued and punished, but he thanked the Chief of the General Staff during that period, and not a single person who was involved in the massacre was prosecuted or even punished.

The Turkish regime has also committed crimes against Kurdish women in northern Syria, including murder, kidnapping, rape and forced marriage, in a manner that amounts to war crimes. The Center for Research and Defense of Women’s Rights in Syria confirmed that hundreds of women have been brutally killed, kidnapped, raped or forced into prostitution or marriage in northern Syria, coinciding with the American withdrawal from the country at the end of last year.

The greatest evidence of these crimes was presented by Erdogan’s henchmen against themselves when they filmed the rape of Kurdish politician Hevrin Khalaf before they stoned her to death, and they filmed themselves standing on her head after killing and dragging her, just as ISIS does, in behavior inconsistent with the teachings of all religions and humanity.

Perhaps the most prominent crimes of the Turkish dictator is the targeting of the Kurds with oppression, killing and extermination, which falls under the ranks of crimes against humanity, by targeting them with war fighters under the pretext of pursuing Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants, as well as the Turkish military operation on Iraq’s Sinjar against Kurds, which resulted in the death of many innocent civilians, with the same pretext of fighting Kurdish fighters.

The measures taken by the Turkish aggressor confirm that he seeks to exterminate the Kurds, especially in northern Syria by changing the demography, as he inhabited the militias loyal to him in place of the Kurdish citizens in this region, whom the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara considers an extension of the PKK, which is outlawed in Turkey and classified as a terrorist organization.

As a result of these policies, other neighborhoods have become almost empty of civilians, and indigenous people are forbidden to return to the city under the pretext of insecurity in the rest of the neighborhoods, while the truth is that the pro-Turkish factions have not yet completed the process of stealing the contents of civilian homes in these neighborhoods.

The interesting thing is that Erdogan is following the path of the Ottoman Empire in changing the demographics of the people, especially Syria. Since Turkey’s occupation after the battle of Marj Dabiq in 1516, it has tried to move Turks from Anatolia to the land of Iskenderun to change its demographic composition after it was seized by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, following contact and betrayal with France in 1939 and claiming that the region has had a Turkish identity 4,000 years ago. He also claimed that the ancient peoples who settled in the Middle East, such as the Sumerians and Hittites, are the ancestors of the Turks. Therefore, he stopped calling the Major General Iskenderun and gave him a new name, Hatay.

Also, the Turkish authorities in Diyarbakir recently blocked 272 websites and accused them of promoting propaganda for the PKK.

The greatest evidence of Erdogan’s crimes against the Kurds is the high price paid by presidential advisor Bulent Arinc, as he lost his position simply because he demanded the release of Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtaş and human rights activist Osman Kavala, both of whom have been detained without trial for more than four years, despite release decisions having been issued by the Supreme Constitutional Court.