The upcoming elections in North and East Syria are a ‘threat’ to Turkish national security, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Thursday.
The Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) is planning to hold elections on 11 June. Erdoğan, who views the AANES, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), claims these elections are the PKK’s attempt to ‘legitimise’ itself as a political party.
Describing the elections as “aggressive actions against the territorial integrity of Turkey and Syria under the pretext of a referendum”, the Turkish President said, “Turkey will not allow a ‘terroristan’ across its southern border, in Syria’s north”.
This is not the first time Erdoğan has used the ‘terroristan’ label. “We are making preparations that will unsettle those who think they can undermine Turkey with a ‘Terroristan’ on its southern borders,” Erdoğan had said in March. In a strong response, Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party Co-chair Tuncer Bakırhan said “Mr Erdoğan, the place you call Terroristan is Kurdistan”, slamming the President for his pro-war policies and criticising the Turkish government’s portrayal of Kurds.
In response, 33 political parties and organisations have come together in North and East Syria to refute the claims of the Turkish President.
“Since its founding, Syria has suffered from frequent Turkish threats, under various pretexts, and the Turkish regime’s primary goal is to occupy areas of Syria or subject Syria to its policy,” the organisations said in their statement.
“Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, Turkey has increased the pace of its threats and interference in Syrian affairs, until it reached the point of occupying many areas of northern Syria, despite the fact that the Syrian side, especially the Autonomous Administration, did not pose any threat to Turkish lands,” the statement continued.
“The Turkish regime continues to threaten the region with intervention and occupation, claiming that the Autonomous Administration project is a separatist project, despite the fact that in the program of any of the parties participating in establishing the administration, there is no clause calling for separation.”
“We, in the political parties and forces that signed this statement, confirm once again that there is no clause or intention to secede from Syria in the Autonomous-administration project that we established, but rather we always call for preserving and defending its unity,” the parties affirmed.
The statement concluded by calling on the United Nations to take steps to “restrain Turkey from aggression” against the region.
On 30 May, the Executive Council of the AANES released a statement addressing comments by the Security Council of Turkey, accusing the AANES of trying to break away from Syria. The executive council said that it is Turkey that is occupying Syrian land and sowing division.
One day after Erdoğan’s comments, the Media Center of the SDF announced that two of their fighters were targeted and killed by a Turkish drone in the Jazira region of North and East Syria, as reported by Hawar News Agency (ANHA).
Turkey’s drone attacks cause a ‘permanent level of tension’ in northeast Syria, an NGO worker visiting the region said in April.