PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
TURKEY'S WAR ON AFRIN (30 January 2018)

That this House strongly condemns Turkey's unprovoked, aggressive airstrikes on Afrin, a Kurdish canton in Northern Syria, resulting in deaths and injuries of civilians; notes that initiating a military attack on a country that has not attacked you constitutes a war crime; understands that neither Afrin canton, nor any other Northern Syrian Kurdish region, has ever attacked or threatened to attack Turkey; further notes that Turkish jets started targeting civilian areas in Afrin on 20 January 2018, including Afrin city, Cindirêsê, Reco, Shera, Shêrawa and Mabeta districts and the refugee camp Rubar; notes that the Rubar camp hosts more than 20,000 refugees who have fled war-torn parts of Syria, and that Afrin itself hosts more than 200,000 internally displaced people which constitutes over half its population; condemns the Turkish military's alliance with al-Qaeda, Heyet Tahrir El Sam, in coordinated aerial and ground attacks on Afrin, opening up a new and bloody front after seven years of tragic conflict in Syria; believes this can only drag the region into a renewed catastrophe, inflicting hunger, killing more children, creating more displaced people; commends the Kurdish forces in the YPG and YPJ who defeated ISIS in their capital of Raqqa; calls on all democratic forces and public opinion to show solidarity with the people of Afrin, to protest and condemn Turkey's genocidal invasion; condemns the silence of the international community in the face of these attacks which will legitimise the violation of human and fundamental rights.

Sponsored by:
Chris Williamson (Independent)