Kurds in Syria

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (15:19): I rise today to speak of the plight of the Kurdish people. A few days ago, the military of the Republic of Turkey invaded northern Syria. In invading northern Syria, they have destabilised the Middle East. What they are attempting to do is silence a minority. The Turkish military have a history of ethnic cleansing and genocide since the 1920s in Asia Minor, when they ruthlessly attacked civilian Greeks, Greek Pontians, Armenians, Kurds and Assyrians, to the modern day, when they invaded Cyprus in 1974 and began a project of ethnic cleansing of the north. Now we see it again in northern Syria.

The Kurdish people seek nothing but freedom. Indeed, when the West was confronted with the ISIS caliphate, instead of sending our sons and daughters they sent theirs, and they defeated them. With the assistance of the United States and her allies, the caliphate no longer exists. Those fighters were imprisoned—dispersed, weakened and imprisoned. The United States has withdrawn its troops from northern Syria, paving the way for an invasion by Turkish military forces. What has occurred is that those ISIS fighters have now been freed from their prisons. The no-fly zone is no longer enforced. Kurdish civilians are being bombed and murdered.

What do we say to the mother of a Kurdish child whose father or husband or son was fighting in our name, rather than our sons and daughters, while they hold their deceased children in their arms? What do we say to them? What do we say to the Kurds whom we have abandoned? What do we say to any other future ally of the West when we embark upon trying to spread freedom and liberal democracy values? What do we say to them when we ask them to stand by us when they point to the Kurds? This is a human tragedy unfolding before us.

As the United States withdraws, Russian and Iranian influence spreads into Syria. The Assad regime is now moving back into northern Syria with their Iranian and Russian allies. Now that the West has withdrawn from there, we leave these people isolated. It is very difficult for us in the West to understand the intricacies of different politics within the Middle East. When we talk about Asia Minor and its bordering the Middle East, we have Kurds, Assyrians and Greek Pontians, and we have the geopolitical disturbances in Cyprus, and we try to work out whose side we should be on.

But we had a pact. We had an arrangement with the Kurdish freedom fighters, which was that we viewed ISIS and its caliphate as a threat to the West. After a long, drawn-out war in Afghanistan and a long, bloody war in Iraq, the West did not want to deploy troops to another conflict again, so they went there in our name. Yes, they were also fighting for their own homeland, a Kurdish free state. Yes, they had their own self-interest, but we partnered and NATO forces enforced a no-fly zone. We protected the Kurds from Russian and Iranian influence. Indeed, the Kurds tempered the Iranian and Russian influence on the border of the West, which traditionally has been Asia Minor.

Now, of course, we have surrendered that ground. We have surrendered these people to violence and thuggery. I am a student of what occurred in Asia Minor in the 1920s, and the best accounts we have are from American journalists who were there, witnessing the long, drawn-out retreat of Syrians, Greek Pontians, Kurds and Armenians, who were slaughtered as they were marched out of Asia Minor. This is occurring again. Indeed, the term 'genocide' was initially coined because of Ataturk's actions. It is happening again. We cannot stand for it. We must shine a light.