Status: 11/21/2022 4:07 p.m
The military exchange of blows between Turkey and Kurdish militias in Syria threatens to escalate. The Federal Foreign Office reacted to the attacks by both sides with a warning to Turkey.
After airstrikes by the Turkish military on Kurdish militia positions in northern Syria and Iraq, the German government has called on the Turkish government to exercise restraint. “We call on Turkey to react proportionately and to respect international law,” said Foreign Office spokesman Christofer Burger.
In particular, respect for international law means that civilians must be protected at all times, said Burger. He called reports of possible civilian victims of Turkish attacks “extremely worrying”.
Turkey and all other parties involved should now “do nothing that would further aggravate the already tense situation in northern Syria and Iraq,” Burger continued. Referring to Article 51 of the UN Charter, Burger also made it clear: “The right to self-defense does not include a right to retaliation.”
Mutual attacks with fatalities
The spokesman for the Foreign Office was reacting to several previous attacks and announcements of retaliation by both sides. Turkey recently reported shelling from Syria. Three people were killed and six injured in the province of Gaziantep, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said. The governor of Gaziantep blamed the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG for the shelling.
The latest events followed the attack on a shopping street in Istanbul. Six people have been killed in the past week. The government in Ankara sees the YPG and the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK as the masterminds of the attack. On the other hand, the PKK, which is classified as a terrorist organization in Turkey, the USA and the EU, and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which also includes the YPG militia, deny any involvement in the attack.
Kurdish activists and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported exchanges of fire with Kurdish militias and heavy Turkish shelling in rural northern Aleppo region and in Kobane. The region is under the control of the YPG.
Turkey attacked Kurdish positions from the air
The Turkish military had previously launched numerous airstrikes against the YPG and PKK during the night. At least 35 people were killed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
Turkey has been trying for years to set up a “buffer zone” on its border with Syria and push back the Kurdish units it blames for terrorist attacks.
Özdemir: Erdogan wants to distract
Speaking to the Federal Foreign Office, Federal Minister of Agriculture Cem Özdemir (Greens), among others, sharply criticized the Turkish attacks on Kurdish positions. He wrote on Twitter: “Erdogan’s bombs on Kurds, which successfully fought IS terrorists, are intended to distract attention from the economic disaster in Turkey.”
The Green Party leader Ricarda Lang made a similar statement. She said she had the impression that the attack was being used by the Turkish president “as an excuse for the current bombing of Kurdish areas in Syria and northern Iraq.
We cannot accept that a NATO country reacts to a terrible crime with military attacks that violate international law.
These attacks “seem to be primarily domestically motivated,” said Lang.
The Greens foreign politicians Jürgen Trittin and Max Lucks had previously declared that the attacks by the Turkish air force were against international law. The reference to the bomb attack in Istanbul and the right to self-defense did not change that.
Faeser in Turkey
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) has been in Turkey since today. During the two-day visit, she will “address all current issues relating to security and migration,” said a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.