“The aim of the Turkish invading state is to conduct demographic change and restore the Ottoman era. To make this objective real, Turkey wants to spark a war among Syrian people so that it can easily run its politics in the region … It is exploiting Syrian citizens to establish a capital for ISIS … As a result the region will never be secure,” read the statement, published by the administration’s affiliated news agency ANHA.
The administration is affiliated with the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, or Rojava. It governed Afrin before the canton was taken over last month by Turkish forces and allied Syrian militias.
Rojava, a de facto autonomous region in northern Syria, consists of three cantons – Jazira, Euphrates, and Afrin.
The statement claims that Turkey is using terrorism to pressure Europe and Middle Eastern countries.
It called on all Syrians to “reject these policies and not to move to areas invaded by Turkey.”
Rojava is governed by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the political wing of People’s Protection Units (YPG). Turkey considers the YPG an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a named terrorist organization. The YPG and PYD have denied any “organic” links to the PKK but assert they follow the philosophies of the PKK’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan.
The Turkish Army and its Syrian proxies seized control of Afrin city on March 18 after 58 days of heavy fighting with the YPG.
An estimated 50,000 to 70,000 civilians remain in Afrin city, according to UN figures.
A UK-based conflict monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reports a deliberate policy of demographic change is being implemented in Afrin to repopulate the town with non-Kurdish families.
Sources told the Observatory that those people who have remained in their homes frequently face arrest, insult and humiliation.
The Turkish government and its Syrian proxies are expected to announce a new administration to take over the affairs of the Kurdish city, Syrian opposition officials have said.
Afrin civilians say it is not safe to return home and those who try become targets for Turkish-backed Syrian militias now controlling the canton, despite claims out of Ankara that civilians are now returning.
