Kürkçü: Peoples of Syria at the hands of DAESH are paying the price of a miscalculated US-backed proxy war to realign forces in the Middle East

Our İzmir MP Ertuğrul Kürkçü gave a speech on behalf of Unified European Left (UEL) Group at the PACE's autumn session on the report titled Prosecuting and punishing the crimes against humanity or even possible genocide committed by Daesh. Kürkçü stated the following:

On behalf of the UEL, I would like to express that we welcome the report and the motion for resolution in general and thank the rapporteur for his detailed work in order to discern the nature of the DAESH atrocities as deliberately designed strategical activity with the final aim of the annihilation of the non-Sunnite and non-Arab communities and minorities in Syria and in Iraq, and possibly across the globe. 

I have deliberately chosen the words non-Sunnite and non-Arab and enlarged the DAESH area of activity to possibly encompass the globe, partly detaching myself from the report. For, if we take a closer look into the DAESH activities we will see that these atrocities are justified in the narrow meaning of the concept jihad which encompasses the annihilation of all who do not bow before the will of their creed. And on the other hand in Syria and Iraq Kurds who are mostly of Sunnite belief have been directly targeted by the DAESH for annihilation. The reason they have survived is not that their creed is not targeted by DAESH but their degree of organization and combat capacities to repel DAESH forces out of Rojava, Western Kurdistan. Therefore we should keep in mind that  DAESH’s genocidal orientation is not limited to different beliefs but extends to non-Arabic ethnicities and particularly to Kurds of Iraq and Syria as well as of the globe.

On the other hand while the PACE extends its attention to settling the matters with DAESH as the war with DAESH closes to a possible end we should also use this oportunity for autocriticism.

We must not forget that “the peoples of Syria at the hands of DAESH are paying the price of a miscalculated US-backed proxy war to realign forces in the Middle East. Their plight stems not only from the DAESH’s ruthlessness, but is an inevitable consequence of a Islamic based revolt that was apparently encouraged by the US with no political programme or reliable leadership, never mind any political calculation of a possible outcome.” Unfortunately the Assembly -as we had raised as far back as 2013- too was not immune of this same myopic approach as it had anticipated in its April 2012 Res. 1878 that ‘Assad’s regime is coming to an end.’

“This perspective of a near collapse of the regime has inevitably led the ‘West’- and particularly Ankara- turn a blind eye to or complicity in the atrocities and massacres by the so called ‘moderate’ Free Syrian Army (FSO) at least 50 percent of which comprised of Al Qaida linked Al Nusra and other jihadists what finally boiled into the ISIS as the report explicitly depicts. Thus the Western military support channeled through Turkey’s borders to FSO for a forcible regime change was inevitably acquired by these ruthless IS reactionaries who have vowed to unite fight for the rule of sharia in Syria.”

12 October 2017