US watchdog group: Turkey’s actions in Syria endanger religious diversity
The partial withdrawal of US troops from northeast Syria in October created a vacuum for religious repression, a bipartisan US agency says.
A congressionally appointed watchdog body said today that Turkey and its proxies are curtailing the rights of religious minorities in northern Syria and will continue to do so if the United States doesn’t intervene to stop them.
“The United States cannot look the other way as this disaster unfolds,” said Nadine Maenza, vice chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
“This situation directly endangers precious ethnic and religious diversity that has long marked the northeast, and it threatens the viability and stability of the autonomous administration,” Maenza said, referring to a Kurdish-led region.
During a virtual panel today, the bipartisan group called on the Trump administration to put pressure on Turkey to withdraw from the northeast, parts of which it invaded in October after President Donald Trump announced the sudden withdrawal of US troops from the region. Turkey’s stated goal was to push from its southern border the Kurdish fighters it considers as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party, a militant group that has carried out a decades-long insurgency in Turkey.
