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The city councillor in Moreland, a city of 180,000 near Melbourne, Australia, called for international solidarity with the people of north and east Syria in the face of Turkey’s threats to launch yet another incursion into the region.
Sue Bolton, a member of the Socialist Alliance, noted that some organisations recently addressed the United Nations (UN) for a no fly zone over the region, and said that people all over the world should support the call.
Over thirty political parties and groups in north and east Syria had called on the UN in early July for a no-fly zone, expressing their concern at Turkey’s threats of a military campaign to further occupy parts of the region.
Bolton said in a video message:
“Once again the Kurds are being used as a bargaining chip for other countries making deals, and this could be a dangerous deal for the Kurds because Finland and Sweden are promising to provide more arms to the Turkish government, they are promising to stop assistance to the autonomous administration in northern Syria, and they are promising to crack down on Kurdish activists in their own countries, and extradite those people to Turkey. So this is a really disastrous issue for the Kurds.”
She continued:
“It’s also especially disastrous because this will be used to support the Turkish government’s plans to invade and seize more territory in the northern parts of Syria. The Turkish government has already been using drones and heavy artillery to bombard the civilians in northern Syria. Now a number of organisations approached the United Nations for a no fly zone. I think people all over the world should support the call for a no fly zone to stop the Turkish government from firing missiles on civilians from the air and causing the expulsion of more tens of thousands of Kurds and other people from the towns and villages in northern Syria.
She added:
“The people in northern Syria, including the Kurds, deserve our support all over the world. And everyone who has been opposing the Russian invasion in Ukraine should equally be condemning the Turkish government’s plans to invade, or further invade north and east Syria.”
