ECR Statement on the Pence-Erdogan Agreement

The Pence agreement is a travesty that gives Erdogan everything he wants and offers the Kurds nothing. We call on Congress to repudiate this agreement and impose heavy sanctions for Turkey's invasion of Rojava and egregious violations of human rights by its military and armed groups.

The Trump administration was in no position to make any agreement involving the Kurds, whom it had just betrayed, without asking their opinion, let alone seeking their collaboration. This is classic colonialist behavior. Rojava is not a US colony. Nor does the US have the right or the power to give Syrian territory to Turkey.

The five-day ceasefire supposed to result from this agreement has proven a cynical deception. According to the Syrian Democratic Council, on the morning of Oct. 18, one day after the agreement was announced, Turkish forces bombed the village of Bab al-Khair, southeast of Ras al-Ain. The bombing has already killed five members of the Syrian Democratic Forces and a number of civilians and still continues, as does the catastrophic displacement of hundreds of thousands of people caused by the Turkish invasion.

We support the SDF's call on the US, UN, and Arab League to send observers to make sure this ceasefire actually takes place and prevent further war crimes by Turkey and its armed groups.

President Donald Trump has equated the Rojava Kurds with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party, Turkey) and said they are worse terrorists than ISIS. This is an absurd falsehood that betrays Trump’s ignorance of even recent history in the Middle East. ISIS has committed every war crime in the book, including selling women into slavery, while the PKK signed the Geneva Convention in 1995 and has repeatedly tried to get Turkey to engage in peace negotiations. Since 2014, the US government has maintained that the Syrian Kurdish PYD (Democratic Union Party) are not terrorists. Why is Donald Trump using Erdogan's definition instead of that of his own government?

We support the SDC's call for UN sponsorship of genuine Syrian peace negotiations that will include all parties and find a political solution based on international law. We call on everyone to defend Rojava and oppose US complicity in Turkey's war on the Kurds.

Sincerely,
Steering Committee of the Emergency Committee for Rojava

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