Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I join others in expressing our sympathy on the sad passing of Senator Dolan's father.

On Tuesday of last week a member of NATO and of the Council of Europe carried out a targeted assassination of local political leaders in a neighbouring state as they were carrying out their public duties. The murderer was Türkiye, the people killed were in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, and the world took no notice. You would not have read about it anywhere. The United States issued one of their usual statements urging all parties to de-escalate, as though there was some equivalence between being a council leader and murdering one. When Türkiye breaches international mores, no one wants to know, especially if the victims hold few cards in the world of realpolitik. What I found truly shocking was that last week's attack brought to 48 the number of people in north and east Syria murdered by Turkish drones since the beginning of this year, and a further 38 have been wounded. Thirteen of those killed were civilians. The rest were soldiers who had defended their land and the world against ISIS. None was a threat to Türkiye. Civilian leaders have been specifically targeted. The drone attack last week hit a car carrying two female leaders of a local council of Qamilo canton. Those are the women who were murdered last week.

I raise the issue because we need a debate on Türkiye for a whole host of reasons. The abuse of human rights and the calculated murder regime there in respect of the Kurdish people should not be acceptable to any of us. I know, a Chathaoirligh, that you have a good tradition of inviting ambassadors in during their national days, and I think it is something we all welcome, but I would strongly object to inviting Türkiye in for a whole host of reasons that I will not have time to go into. Suffice it to say there is something very wrong in the world when we see 38 people murdered and hear not a word about it. This is a state that claims to believe in human rights. I met representatives of the state last week on the Council of Europe. There is something desperately wrong going on, we need to draw attention to it, and I think we could do so via a debate in this Chamber.