Trump, Erdogan, deportations to, war in, Syria

This 14 August 2019 video from the USA says about itself:

United States and Turkey Agree to a Syrian “Safe Zone“, Betraying the Kurds

Baris Karaagac discusses how the U.S allowed the Turkish government to seize land in northern Syria to counter Russian and Iranian influence in spite of former Kurdish allies.

At first, United States wannabe dictator Donald Trump and Turkish wannabe dictator Erdogan really got along well. Later, they quarrelled, hurting common people in Turkey. Now, it seems they are cronies again.

The boss of NATO already earlier OK’d the bloody war by Erdogan and his ex(?)-ISIS allies in northern Syria. Now, Trump OKs as well Erdogan and his jihadist allies having an UNsafe ‘safe’ zone in Syria; safe for killing civilians.

As Erdogan wages war in Syria, he sends Syrian refugees back to that war; emulating Trump’s anti-refugee policies.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Deportations in Turkey: “They sent him to Syria”

The Turkish government firmly denies it, but there is increasing evidence that Syrian refugees are being transferred from Turkey to Syria. It has been reported since the end of July about several thousand people. In Istanbul, people are arrested who turn up in Syria days or weeks later. According to Turkey, this is voluntary return, but deported Syrians deny that.

Sending refugees back to a war zone is prohibited under international refugee conventions. This new step by Turkey may therefore endanger the refugee deal between the EU and Turkey. It is based on the assumption that Turkey is a safe country for Syrians. If they can be returned against their will, then Turkey is no longer a safe country.

The whole Turkey-European Union deal was already anti-human rights anti-refugee refoulement from the start.

The arrests and deportations lead to tension among Syrians in Istanbul. For fear of the police, in neighborhoods where many Syrians have settled in recent years, considerably fewer people are on the street. …

“I’m in Idlib”

Fida shuffles and does not look cheerful, he points to an empty shop window. “My friend here has closed his shop because he has no residence permit. He is afraid of the police.” In the shopping center in the center of the Esenyurt district, Fida also has two clothing stores. They are still open, but sales have plummeted.

“People no longer come out, there are police everywhere. Even after midnight, you still encounter patrols. Those who do not have an ID will be sent to Syria.” Fida has his papers in order. Until recently, the police made no problem if you had no registration or work permit. “Syrians worked everywhere without a work permit,” he says. “Now they have all had to leave work and have been arrested or sit anxiously at home.”

His gloom is more personal than that, says the shopkeeper. “Fifteen days ago I was drinking coffee with my best friend when the police came. They asked for IDs. My friend was taken, after which I heard nothing from him for two days. I could not reach him. On the third day he called me : “I’m in Idlib.”

Idlib is a zone in Syria where the Turkish army and their jihadist puppets wage war.

They sent him to Syria.” …

We had to sign

But according to Fida and a number of other sources that the NOS spoke to, that [the denial of forced deportation by the Turkish government] is not the case. We reach Fida’s friend Nour, who was taken by the police during drinking coffee, on his Syrian number. He is in a suburb of Idlib, he says, and the situation is tense. “I am now surviving at acquaintances’. Every day I stay somewhere else. People are having a hard time. There is hunger, no work and there are bombardments.”

According to Nour, his deportation was forced, and several buses full of Syrians went from Turkey to Idlib with him. “We had to sign a paper, it was a deportation document for return to Syria. We asked what it said because some people couldn’t read it. They forced us to sign. We didn’t want to be deported.”

The story of Nour is consistent with that of Haytham. He was also picked up at a police check in Istanbul and taken to a deportation center. “I signed papers and gave fingerprints, then I was detained for three weeks before we were put on a bus with our wrists shackled together“, he says on the phone from Syria. “They took us to the Syrian border post Bab al-Hawa, at Jabhat al Nusra territory.”

Jabhat al-Nusra is the Syrian franchise of al-Qaeda, the perpetrators of 9/11 in the USA.

According to the European Commission and the Turkish government, the EU-Turkey deal of March 2016, which is intended to bring the flow of migrants from Turkey to Greece under control, is still standing.

A spokesperson for the Commission said in a reaction to reports on deportations of Syrians from Turkey that the Commission “is confident that Turkey will investigate the facts behind these allegations”.