A recent photo of the Turkish town of Nusaybin and its Syrian neighbor Qamishli across the border was circulated widely on social media June 5, and it went viral in no time. The photo appeared only in daily Cumhuriyet under the headline "Nusaybin leveled." In the background of the photo, which was taken from a high building in Nusaybin, an abandoned city was captured with buildings full of holes caused by artillery rounds and roads blocked by rubble. In the foreground about 30 Turkish soldiers are seen moving through a town square covered by dust and debris, protected by six armored vehicles and massive Turkish flags hanging from the destroyed buildings lining the square.
If someone had seen the photo without knowing of the destruction caused by the war Turkey has been waging in the southeast since July 2015, he would have assumed it was a Syrian town occupied by Turkey. Any sane person would have thought the photo depicted a scene from Syria, which after all is a country destroyed by war, and not a city in Turkey destroyed by the national army and decorated with Turkish flags. But as we know it is actually a photo of Nusaybin, the first thing that comes to mind is that a part of Turkey is being "Syrianized."
