Syrian Opposition Calls on Turkey to Intervene in Syria

The head of ‘the Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC), Naser al-Hariri, has recently called on Turkey to make a new military intervention in Syria. The purpose behind his request is to eliminate the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and to undermine the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

This is not the first time that the pro-Turkish Syrian opposition has called on Turkey to interfere militarily in Syria. It had previously asked Turkey to invade all the cities and towns currently occupied by Turkey. Armed Syrian opposition factions loyal to Turkey, which are considered as the military wing of SOC, have participated effectively with Turkish forces in all operations.

Many members of these factions turned into mercenaries on demand and under direct Turkish supervision and sponsorship. Turkey has already utilised thousands of them in Libya and Azerbaijan, and perhaps later to Afghanistan to guard Kabul’s airport and to Kurdistan region to fight PKK fighters.

Numerous political studies indicate that most of political and armed opposition in the world are miniature copies of the regimes of their states. But SOC surpassed the Assad regime in the negative sense of the word. According to several international reports, the crimes committed by the armed Syrian opposition factions affiliated with Ankara were no less horrific than what the Syrian regime, Russia and Iran perpetrated. The difference was and still lies in the limited capabilities of the armed opposition factions compared to the Russian-Syrian air superiority.

Since the first day of the militarisation of the Syrian crisis, the Syrian opposition has deliberately involved civilians in the cycle of the armed conflict with the ruthless Assad regime, and this is per se a war crime. Since the beginning of the Syrian tragedy, the armed Syrian opposition groups have committed murder, revenge, slaughter and beheading on a religious, sectarian, and ethnic basis. They have killed, robbed, burned, raped, and displaced in the city of Afrin just because the victims are Kurds. The political and armed opposition loyal to Turkey was and still is proud of the successive Turkish occupations of Syrian lands and they are seeking for more.

Turkey has used the armed Syrian opposition militias to launch several military assaults inside Syrian territory since 2016, which led to Turkey's occupation of all the areas were invaded. Most of these offensives were against Kurdish-led SDF and their administration. For instance, the operation 'Olive Branch' in 2018, which led to the occupation of the Kurdish city of Afrin after the expulsion of Kurdish forces and undermining the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration. Likewise, ‘Operation Peace Spring’ that led to Turkey’s occupation of two large Kurdish cities in northeast Syria.

Turkey has used Syrian political and armed opposition to legitimise its frequent assaults against Syrian sovereignty. In other words, to demonstrate that the operations were carried out at the request of the Syrian political and armed opposition affiliated with it and financed by Qatar.

Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said in a statement published on the Observatory’s electronic platform, that “Nasr al-Hariri was not satisfied, only with Turkey’s occupation of Afrin, Ras al-Ain, Tal Abyad and the Euphrates Shield areas. Therefore, he has called Turkey to occupy north-eastern Syria under the pretext of fighting SDF. He added, “is there coordination between Nasr al-Hariri and Turkish intelligence to direct this request to Turkey's president to occupy more Syrian lands".

An opposition that demands another country to occupy its own homeland is not a patriotic and honourable opposition, but rather a group of traitors and mercenaries. The pro-Turkish Syrian opposition is a glaring example of this when it has repeatedly asked Turkey for more military interventions just to take revenge on the Kurds and to serve Turkey's agendas in Syria. levant

by: Jwan Dibo levant

Jwan Dibo