Diary Marif
My narrative arises from personal experiences, depicting the sense of insecurity under Turkish drones. I illustrate numerous instances where the Turkish government’s actions instilled panic and caused civilian casualties in Iraq and Syrian Kurdistan, often rationalized as their fight against terrorism. This pattern reveals Turkey’s agenda to eliminate the Kurdish population, a part of a long history marked by blatant crimes against the Kurds. I request that everyone vociferously oppose Turkey’s aggressive actions. The strength of the Kurds is crucial; if they are destroyed, extremist groups such as ISIS gain power, endangering global safety. To safeguard the world, you must ensure the safety of the Kurds.
In early December 2023, my friends and I camped in Penjween, an Iraqi-Kurdish town near the Iranian border. As we began our day, we saw a Turkish drone hovering above us. A surge of fear gripped me instantly, knowing the devastating impact these drones have had on innocent civilians miles away from Turkey’s borders. Throughout the day, the looming presence of the drone cast a shadow of anxiety over me until our safe return home. My experience is just one among countless Kurdish stories in Iraq and Syria, where these drones have become a haunting presence, bringing fear and uncertainty to our daily lives.
A few weeks later, on December 25, 2023, when I returned to Canada, Turkish drones caused the deaths of 10 civilians and destroyed facilities in northeastern Syria, an area predominantly inhabited by the Kurds. In Iraq, two journalists were recently killed near my family’s home in Said Sadiq when a Turkish drone struck their vehicle. These attacks are part of a broader series of assaults in August and September 2024, which have increasingly targeted civilians.
The Turkish government upholds its policy of targeting Kurdish populations in Syria and Iraq under the name of fighting terror, where Kurds have established semi-autonomous administrative regions. Since 1991, the Kurdish region in Iraq has been granted a level of self-governance, allowing Kurds to oversee their internal affairs including security, education, and economic development while maintaining their connection to the broader Iraqi nation. In Syria, a similar semi-autonomous setup emerged during the Syrian Civil War in 2012, predominantly in the northern regions where Kurds reside. Here, Kurdish forces such as the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) have established an administration with limited autonomy. However, this autonomous Kurdish region is not officially recognized by the Syrian government.
According to multiple sources, Turkish forces have conducted over 6,500 airstrikes, primarily in Kurdish areas of Syria and Iraq since 2016. As a result, thousands of civilians have been killed or wounded as these attacks have escalated in frequency and expanded deeper into Iraq and Syria in recent years.
The Turkish regime has justified these assaults to the global community, claiming they target the Kurdistan Workers Party, (Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan: PKK), which has been in conflict with Turkey since the 1980s, resulting in the deaths of more than 40,000 individuals, civilians included, on both sides. The relationship between Turkey and the PKK has been characterized by conflict and tension for decades. The PKK, established in 1978, initiated an armed insurgency against the Turkish government in 1984, seeking to advance Kurdish rights and autonomy. Designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the PKK has been the target of numerous military operations conducted by the Turkish government within its borders and in northern Iraq, where the PKK has established bases. Despite intermittent ceasefires and attempts at peace talks, the conflict has persisted, leading to ongoing violence and instability in the region.
However, the most recent Turkish attacks have targeted civilian sites where the PKK is not present, resulting in largely civilian casualties. The data suggest that Turkey employs drones that do not solely target the PKK. Rather than combating specific threats, Turkey appears to use drone interventions to dismantle broader aspects of Kurdish political and military movements, potentially leading to ethnic, cultural, and environmental cleansing, which are supported by the following facts.
Since 2018, the Turkish military has invaded several Syrian Kurdish cities and continuously threatens to invade others, which Turkey justifies by arguing that they need to create a “safe zone” in northern Syria to serve as a buffer against the ongoing Syrian war. Also, President Donald Trump withdrew US troops from along the Turkey-Syria border, providing Turkey with an opportunity to seize its “safe zone.” Turkey invaded a large zone in Iraqi Kurdistan and built around 40 military bases. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria reported instances of Turkish-backed forces engaging in sexual violence against both women and men, along with the recruitment of children into the military.
In Iraqi Kurdistan alone, 158 villages have been evacuated due to attacks, with an additional 600 villages at risk of evacuation. The natural environment in Iraqi Kurdistan and Syrian Kurdistan is also being degraded by cutting down trees to build roads for the Turkish military and selling the felled trees illegally for economic gain.
The drones and airstrikes have also targeted oil facilities, healthcare centers, and critical infrastructure in Syrian Kurdistan. This has resulted in a 50% drop in electricity production, as reported by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.
The crimes committed by the Turkish government against the Kurds are just a glimpse into a vast sea of injustices carried out under the guise of fighting the PKK.
To understand the logic of current Turkish politics towards the Kurds, it is helpful to go back to the historic background of Kurdish life since the early 20th century.
Kurdish YPG Fighters. Photo @Wikimedia Commons
The Young Turks, a diverse coalition active from 1889 to 1918, initiated a revolutionary movement focused on advocating Turkish nationalism aimed at reclaiming historically connected territories. They promoted a pan-Turkic ideology centred around regions sharing Turkic cultural ties, to control the Kurdish region. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 that divided the region was seen as a challenge by the Young Turks to Anglo-Franco powers.
Mustafa Kemal (1881-1938), known as the founding father of modern Turkey after its establishment in 1923, implemented policies geared towards forging a unified Turkish nation-state with a strong emphasis on Turkish identity.
The 1924 Turkish constitution emphasized the singular identity of the Turkish nation and strictly forbid the use of languages or identities other than Turkish which was harshly imposed on minority groups, particularly Kurds. This repression led many Kurds to link the Turkish state and the concept of Turkish identity with the brutal suppression they endured. The Kurds were targeted by a nationalist agenda aiming to assimilate Kurds, forcibly disconnecting them from their heritage and culture.
İsmet İnönü (1884 – 1973), Turkey’s second president (1938 – 1950), outlined this nationalist stance by emphasizing the dominance of the Turkish majority and advocating for the enforced Turkification of all inhabitants, expressing a willingness to eliminate those who resisted. The process of assimilating continued to be enforced in the following decades.
The era between the foundation of the republic from 1923 to the early 1990s was the period of “Denial” by Turkish governments, which refers to the denial of the existence of Kurds and called for the policies of assimilation and oppression as “civilizing missions”.
For many decades, the Kurdish language, culture, folklore, and names were prohibited. The terms “Kurds,” “Kurdistan,” and “Kurdish” were outlawed, with the government insisting on labelling Kurds as “Mountain Turks,” claiming that their language had merely deviated from Turkish over time. The Kurds are also called “Barbarians,” and “lack of culture.”
In the 1990s, Turgut Özal (1927 – 1993), who served as President (1989 – 1993), made efforts to improve the situation of Kurds in Turkey. Before he passed away, Özal pursued policies aimed at easing restrictions on Kurdish cultural expression and language rights. In the 1990s, the Kurds experienced some improvements known as the “Period of recognition.” However, instead of assimilation, Kurds were often seen as distinct from Turkish identity, facing racial stereotypes based on physical traits and cultural perceptions that represented them as violent, crude and hypersexual.
In the 2000s, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government introduced reforms towards Kurds, aiming to address long-standing issues. The AKP initiated policies for greater cultural rights and recognition of the Kurdish identity.
Erdogan’s Turkey has grown into an enterprising regional interventionist power. By employing global economic integration, soft power, and fostering a peaceful environment, Ahmet Davutoglu, the Chief Adviser to Prime Minister Erdogan, articulated the ‘Zero Problems with the Neighbours’ policy, one of the four key principles of the AKP government’s foreign policy. This approach, rooted in modified neo-Ottomanism, sought to establish Turkey as a leader in the Middle East and strengthen its eligibility for EU membership.
Erdogan’s new approach aimed to influence neighbouring countries using Turkish schools, television series, and culture. Additionally, Ankara’s foreign policy relied on contracts with Turkish companies abroad and trade agreements. However, these methods didn’t meet Erdogan’s goal of controlling Kurdistan.
The 2015 and 2016, Erdogan’s political strategies with an emphasis on nationalism and security concerns led to a hardline approach against Kurdish movements, often prioritizing a singular national narrative over minority rights. This was due to the pressure he faced from nationalist groups who wanted a tougher stance against the Kurds. Additionally, Erdogan was scared of strengthening Syrian Kurds and the tensions between the PKK and the Turkish state heightened again.
Erdogan dreams of going back to the Ottoman Empire and he regularly describes himself as the “Grandchild” of the Ottomans. Turkey reverting to an Ottoman-like state would require a level of harshness and control akin to what Erdogan is prepared to implement. His regime was actively engaged with its pan-Islamic and nationalistic ambitions in eliminating the most “disloyal” segments of the Kurdish population.
Within Turkey, Kurds including lawyers, politicians, singers, activists, and students face relentless detentions and imprisonment under the accusation that they are PKK members. Moreover, a troubling wave of hate crimes perpetrated by ultra-nationalists against Kurds has emerged, fueled by Erdogan’s rhetoric and the support of his allies and his announcement that “Turkey does not face a Kurdish issue.”
Erdogan exhibits an aversion towards Kurds, even extending to concerns about the growth of the Kurdish population. In a video, he encourages Turkish families to have more children, Erdogan asserts, “The PKK [families] has 5, 10, 15 children,” while simultaneously accusing millions of Kurdish citizens of terrorism. The contradiction lies in the fact that the PKK members are restricted from having children due to the organization’s prohibition on marriage and any sexual relationships among its fighters.
Similar to the former Turkish authorities, Erdogan thought the Kurds were the main problem for his hegemony. His assault on Kurds spanning beyond Turkey’s borders has been ongoing.
The new assaults violate the principles of warfare, breach international regulations, safeguarding human rights and disregarding the sovereignty of other nations. According to International humanitarian law, “The parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants, and between civilian objects and military objectives”.
In the eyes of the governing elite and many ordinary people not only the rebellious Kurds are the enemy, but all Kurds are potential enemies. This perspective underscores the Turkish regime’s
inclination towards what appears to be an ethnic cleansing agenda targeting the entire Kurdish population.
The Kurds fear global indifference towards Turkey’s brutality. Turkey’s neglect of ISIS activities has contributed to this group’s strength. Immediate de-escalation is crucial to prioritize the mission of defeating ISIS and ensuring the safety and security of personnel dedicated to this cause. Attacks on Syrian Kurds by Turkey bolster ISIS, other factions, and the Assad regime, while also amplifying Iranian and Russian influences in Syria. Targeting and subjugating Kurds across Iraq, Syria, and Turkey further destabilizes the region and politically weakens it. Only a peace process can solve the problems, but without the Kurd reconciliation in the Middle East peace will not come to pass. The airstrikes in Syria caused another wave of panic and threat among civilians, and also threatened the safety of the U.S. and Coalition forces who work in Syria with Kurdish partners to defeat ISIS and maintain custody of more than ten thousand ISIS detainees.
What remains to be said is Turkey’s aggressive actions against Kurdish populations in Syria and Iraq, using drones and airstrikes under the pretext of fighting terrorism. Erdogan’s policies, rooted in nationalism and historical animosity, perpetuated violence and oppression against Kurds both within Turkey and beyond its borders. The international community’s awareness and intervention are crucial to prevent further civilian casualties and ensure the safety and rights of the Kurdish people.
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Diary Marif, is a Canadian Kurdish writer and freelance journalist born in Iraq. He earned a master’s degree in history from Pune University, India, in 2013. Since 2018, Marif has focused on hybrid memoirs, drawing from his experiences as a war child. He has contributed to three book chapters and writes for a range of national and international media outlets, including New Canadian Media, Rabble, Toronto Star, WordCityLit, Washington Institute, The Canadian Encyclopedia, The Markaz Review, DrawMedia, and others. In 2022, he received an Honorable Mention for the Susan Crean Award for Nonfiction
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