Turkey's War On Afrin

EDM number 877 in 2017-19, proposed by Chris Williamson on 30/01/2018.
Categorised under the topics of Asylum, Eastern Europe, Ethnic groups, Human rights, International politics and government, Middle East and Military operations.

That this House strongly condemns Turkey's unprovoked, aggressive airstrikes on Afrin, a Kurdish canton in Northern Syria, resulting in deaths and injuries of civilians; notes that initiating a military attack on a country that has not attacked you constitutes a war crime; understands that neither Afrin canton, nor any other Northern Syrian Kurdish region, has ever attacked or threatened to attack Turkey; further notes that Turkish jets started targeting civilian areas in Afrin on 20 January 2018, including Afrin city, Cindirêsê, Reco, Shera, Shêrawa and Mabeta districts and the refugee camp Rubar; notes that the Rubar camp hosts more than 20,000 refugees who have fled war-torn parts of Syria, and that Afrin itself hosts more than 200,000 internally displaced people which constitutes over half its population; condemns the Turkish military's alliance with al-Qaeda, Heyet Tahrir El Sam, in coordinated aerial and ground attacks on Afrin, opening up a new and bloody front after seven years of tragic conflict in Syria; believes this can only drag the region into a renewed catastrophe, inflicting hunger, killing more children, creating more displaced people; commends the Kurdish forces in the YPG and YPJ who defeated ISIS in their capital of Raqqa; calls on all democratic forces and public opinion to show solidarity with the people of Afrin, to protest and condemn Turkey's genocidal invasion; condemns the silence of the international community in the face of these attacks which will legitimise the violation of human and fundamental rights.

This motion has been signed by a total of 18 MPs.