Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Hevrin Khalaf, one of nine civilians tortured and summarily executed by Turkish-based forces on Saturday, was 35 years old. Earlier in the week, the Turkish military bombed a civilian aid convoy in Ras al-Ain, killing more than 20 people. These are only some of the tortures, mass executions and indiscriminate military attacks on civilian targets that make up Turkey's war of terror and genocidal invasion in Rojava. The body count will keep rising as long as the Erdoğan regime continues with this war. People across the world are outraged and horrified at this brutality. This regime has pursued a decades-long policy of oppressing national minorities and attacking democratic rights inside its own borders, and it now faces outwards in order to pursue that policy in Syria. Its forces have been on a campaign of terror in Afrin since it was seized in March and the regime has carried out rampant human rights abuses in Turkey by arresting journalists, political activists, anti-war activists and socialists by the thousands. This regime has been using its military against the Turkish population within its own borders for years.

For all the horror and disgust rightly directed at Erdoğan, we must not forget who his helpers are. Part of the pretext for Turkey's invasion of Syria is the creation of a zone into which the Erdoğan regime could forcibly transfer the millions of refugees currently residing in Turkey. The President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has claimed that the EU will not pay for this. At the same time, however, the EU is paying €3 billion a year for a rotten, disgusting deal which effectively imprisons refugees and prevents them reaching the bloc's borders. Up until yesterday, EU member states were selling huge amounts of arms to Turkey in violation of their own rules, without any consequences. The EU's tears are crocodile tears, and criticism of the EU by Turkey is hypocritical. The EU has blood on its hands from what is currently happening in Rojava. The same applies to the Irish Government. Not only has it facilitated the US murder machine and the destabilisation of the Middle East by allowing US military use of Shannon Airport, but it also exported millions of euro worth of military and dual-use equipment to Turkey in 2016.

The Kurdish people have a saying, "No friend but the mountains", which is particularly clear in this betrayal by various forces of imperialism. The only way to move forward in Syria is to build a multi-ethnic, democratically organised force, a socialist solution which uses existing resources to meet people's needs and ensures the rights of all national minorities to self-determination and other democratic rights. Such forces must also be appealed to internationally, rather than various forces of imperialism. Working-class people, the anti-war movement, socialists, activists, and so on need to raise their voices and demand an end to the invasion. The Government should expel the Turkish ambassador as long as this invasion continues, in order to express our solidarity with the Kurdish people.

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