Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan holds up a map with his proposed “safe zone” in northeast Syria during his speech to the UN General Assembly, New York, September 24, 2019
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan effectively files Ankara’s claim for control of northeast Syria, telling the UN General Assembly that it should be a “safe zone” for Syrian refugees returned from Turkey.
In his speech to the Assembly on Tuesday, Erdoğan proposed the expansion of a “safe zone”. The area, along 450 km (250 miles) of the Turkish-Syrian border and across two Kurdish cantons, was proposed by the Turkish President last December. Implementation was nominally begun through joint patrols of Turkish and US forces this month.
See also Syria Daily, Sept 9: Turkey and US Begin Patrols in “Safe Zone” in Northeast
“If this safe zone can be declared, we can resettle confidently somewhere between 1 to 2 million refugees. Whether with the US or the coalition forces, Russia and Iran, we can walk shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand so refugees can resettle, saving them from tent camps and container camps.
Turkey hosts about 3.6 million Syrian refugees but closed its border to any new entries in 2016. Ankara’s authorities have been accused of deporting some men back to Syria this summer, using the claim of no identity cards or violation of residency rules.
See Syria Daily, August 1: Is Turkey Deporting Syrian Refugees?
Despite the establishment of a joint operations room with the US military, overflights, and two ground patrols, the Erdoğan Government has accused Washington of dragging its foot and continuing support of “terrorists” — the Kurdish militia YPG, who are the biggest faction in the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.
The SDF were created in autumn 2015 to drive the Islamic State out of northeast Syria, a task completed in March this year. But Ankara considers the YPG to be part of the Turkish Kurdish insurgency PKK.
Details of the “safe zone” have been vague, with Turkey calling for a depth of 30 km (19 miles) and the US proposing only 15 km.
Erdoğan repeated the call for the 30-km depth, far into territory with mainly-Kurdish populations: “If we can extend the depth of this safe zone to a Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor line, we can increase the number of Syrians who will return from Turkey, Europe and other parts of the world.”
He said an expanded zone could be home to as many as 3 million people, asserting that up to 500,000 Syrians had been born in Turkey in the last seven years.
Most of the Syrians in Turkey are Arabs, prompting critics of Erdoğan to claim that he is trying to dilute Kurdish areas with demographic changes.
Turkish forces and Syrian rebels overran the Kurdish canton of Afrin in northwest Syria in spring 2018.
Erdoğan also called on the international community to finance the safe zone. He said a UN-led donor conference should pledge provide assistance for those moving into the northeast.
Ankara taking a page out of Baath party’s demographic warfare against Kurds
[Tampering with the delicate ethnic demographic balance of Kurdish regions of Syria harkens back to the dark days of Baathist rule. During the 1960s and 1970s, the regime instigated a policy of resettling Arabs to Kurdish areas in the north, especially in zones close to the Turkish border east of the Euphrates.
https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/erdogan-s-plan-to-resettle-syrian-refugees-in-the-safe-zone-will-only-lead-to-more-violence-and-suffering-1.913977 ]
https://ahvalnews.com/syria/ankara-taking-page-out-baath-partys-demographic-warfare-against-kurds-haaretz 9/14/2019
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Autonomous Administration Not Concerned With Constitutional Committee
The Department of Foreign Relations of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES) announced Monday that it was not concerned with the outcome of the formation of the Syrian Constitutional Committee due to its exclusion and the absence of its representatives’ participation in its meetings.
https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1916411/kurdish-led-autonomous-administration-not-concerned-constitutional-committee 9/24/2019
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The de facto Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria is divided into several self-governing regions. Afrin, Jazira and Kobanî cantons were first established in January 2014 and were envisioned as sub-divisions for a “future decentralized system of federal governance in Syria.” The three cantons were later reorganized into three regions with subordinate cantons, areas, districts and communes. In September 2018, the regions of Raqqa, Tabqa, Manbij and Deir ez-Zor were incorporated into the de facto autonomous region as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_North_and_East_Syria 8/27/2019
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Dada: Recent delegations’ visit will play major role in promoting security, stability in region
Amal Dada, the co-chair of the External Relations Department of the Autonomous Administration, said the recent delegations’ visit to northern and eastern Syria will play a role in supporting stability. Last week, a British delegation representing the UK’s two largest parties, the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, visited the headquarters of the Autonomous Administration bodies in northern and eastern Syria, followed by a joint European delegation from the French and German foreign ministries, who expressed their support to the Autonomous Administration and establish an international tribunal to try ISIS detainees.
https://hawarnews.com/en//haber/dada-recent-delegations-visit-will-play-major-role-in-promoting-security-stability-in-region-h11569.html 9/23/2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on222PMa2qo