Thousands of Kurds staged a demonstration in the Syrian region of Kobane to demand the international coalition that is fighting the ISIS terrorist group to take stance from recent Turkish threats against them.
Kurdish journalist Seireddine Youssef said that over 5,000 people took part in the rally that converged in front of the coalition base in the town Jalbiya.
“Everyone was asking why their loved ones were killed. Wasn’t it for defending themselves and world peace?” he said. “The protesters also demanded a response to the American withdrawal that has abandoned them to confront Turkish threats without support of protection.”
President Donald Trump announced Wednesday the withdrawal of US troops from Syria, raising questions over the fate of American support to Kurdish fighters in their battle against ISIS and their confrontation against Turkish threats of an offensive against them in Syria.
Everyone is afraid of the Turkish threats and Syrian factions that are allied to Ankara. They are concerned that an operation similar to the one that had taken place in Afrin would take place in regions east of the Euphrates River, said Youssef.
Senior Kurdish politician Ilham Ahmed warned Friday that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) may stop their fight against ISIS if they were forced to redeploy to confront a potential Turkish attack.
"We fear things will get out control and we would no longer be able to contain ISIS in the area, and this would open the door to their renewed spread and movement toward the Turkish border and from there to the rest of the world," she warned.
Head of the Syrian Democratic Union Party Shahoz Hasan noted that Ankara’s threats coincide with the economic crisis in Turkey.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has resorted to threatening the region to cover for this crisis, he remarked.
Riad Darar, co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council, questioned the US decision to withdraw from Syria, saying it comes at an “unstable time amid increasing Turkish threats.”
“The necessary protection of the people of the region must be ensured” should the US withdrawal take place, he continued.
He warned that the American move will “complicate the Syrian crisis and open the door for bloodier wars. It will also present an opportunity for ISIS to regroup and renew its threats to international peace and security.”
Erdogan welcomed Trump's decision to withdraw from Syria, but said he remained "cautious" because of "past negative experiences", referring to Ankara's continued disappointment over US support for the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) that act as the military backbone of the SDF.
The SDF, with US support, had managed to expel ISIS in vast regions of northern and eastern Syria. Since September, the SDF has been waging fierce battles against the last remaining ISIS pockets east of the Euphrates.
Turkey conducted an operation against ISIS in 2016 which also aimed to block the YPG from joining up the territory it held in northern Syria and staged an offensive against the group in its northwestern enclave of Afrin in January this year.
