Referring to an attack in Istanbul, Turkish President Erdogan orders air strikes in northern Syria and is also considering a ground offensive. The federal government sees this as a breach of international law. Green leader Lang is even clearer.
After the air raids by the Turkish military on Kurdish militia positions in northern Syria and Iraq, the German government called on Ankara to exercise restraint. “We call on Turkey to react proportionately and to respect international law,” said Foreign Office spokesman Christofer Burger in Berlin. Turkey and all other parties involved should “do nothing that would further aggravate the already tense situation in northern Syria and Iraq.”
In particular, respect for international law means that civilians must be protected at all times, Burger said. “The reports of possible civilian casualties from these Turkish airstrikes are extremely worrying.” Referring to Article 51 of the UN Charter, the speaker also made it clear: “The right to self-defense does not include a right to retaliation.”
Turkey had described the attacks as a response to a deadly bomb attack in Istanbul that killed six. They were directed against the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK and the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG, it said. The Ministry of Defense invoked the right to self-defense under the UN Charter. Ibrahim Kalin, the spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, wrote on Twitter that it was the time of “settlement”.
The Greens strongly condemned the Turkish air raids. After deliberations in the party executive, Chairwoman Ricarda Lang also called for the background to the terrorist attack in Istanbul last week to be clarified. You have the impression that the attack by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “is being used as an excuse for the current bombing of the Kurdish areas in Syria and northern Iraq,” said Lang. “We cannot accept that a NATO country responds to a terrible crime with military attacks that violate international law,” she added. These attacks “seem to be primarily domestically motivated,” said the co-chair. A connection with the elections planned for June cannot be ruled out.
Erdogan had previously announced that after the airstrikes he was also considering ground offensives in northern Syria. There is no question that one is not limited to air operations, “a decision must be made on how many forces from the ground forces must participate, and then steps are taken,” Erdogan said, according to the state news agency Anadolu in the morning. He wasn’t more specific.
Turkey took action against the YPG and the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK on Sunday night with numerous airstrikes in northern Iraq and northern Syria. At least 35 people were killed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. Kurdish militias had announced retaliation. On Sunday and Monday, Turkey reported shelling with dead and injured people on the border with Syria.