Our Country is Not Safer Now

The statement by TKP Central Committee on the recent developments in Syria

https://www.tkp.org.tr/en/agenda/our-country-is-not-safer-now/

In Syria—dragged into civil war through an international operation involving a broad coalition led by the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, and Turkey, and subsequently handed over to the gang known as HTS—a new phase of bloody reckonings based on ethnic identity and sectarian divisions has begun.

1. It was never possible for Syria’s unity and territorial integrity to be ensured by a jihadist coalition led by an individual trained by British and U.S. intelligence services. This has now been clearly proven. 

2.What Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States understand by Syria’s “territorial integrity” is the creation of an environment that serves their own interests. Such an environment inevitably contains dynamics of conflict and fragmentation. This is imperialism. 

3.It is already evident that the AKP, which gives unconditional support to the HTS administration—an organization that has brought together jihadists from across the world and includes many elements with ISIS origins—is acting not for Syria’s unity and stability, but to secure a basis for its own neo-Ottoman project. 

4.We had stated that ensuring Syria’s unity under HTS rule would only be possible through massacres targeting Kurdish, Alawite, and Druze populations. We have now reached precisely this point. This is exactly what the imperialist powers backing HTS intended. Syria has been removed as an obstacle for Israel, the country’s resources have been seized, and hostilities have been consolidated through engagement with all actors. 

5.Everyone is accusing one another of being pro-American or pro-Israeli. This is precisely imperialism’s great success. The same power arms the SDF, unleashes HTS against the SDF, and emboldens the AKP. Imperialism does not seek solutions; it deepens problems and keeps them at a level it alone can control. Despite the deep crisis within the imperialist system, it has once again been shown that—at least in our region—the capacities of the United States and the United Kingdom in this regard have not diminished. 

6.For the “victory” it prematurely declared in Syria, the AKP government has made a series of new political, military, and economic concessions to the United States, particularly concerning Palestine and Ukraine. The cost of these concessions will be imposed heavily on our people. 

7.There are other bills being presented as well. A new chapter has been opened in the emotional rupture experienced by Kurdish citizens of the Republic of Turkey. No matter what the AKP, which also draws support from so-called “secular” circles that take deep pleasure in the advance of jihadist groups in Syria, and the DEM leadership, which can still say “we hope the peace process in Turkey will not be harmed,” may do, “brotherhood” has been deeply wounded. 

8.There is no “peace process” to be harmed, because what has been presented to us was never a genuine peace process. This process was initiated in parallel with the change of power in Syria. A process that produces problems in Syria could never produce solutions in Turkey. It was formed on a market-oriented foundation hostile to the Republic and secularism, and developed under the guidance of the United States and the United Kingdom and under the threats of Israel. Far from solving any problems, it has created—and will continue to create—new ones. 

9.The jihadist coalition growing stronger in Syria constitutes another major threat directed at our people. It is inevitable that this coalition will affect Turkey’s social, political, and ideological balances. Tragically, those who are “secular” in Turkey and “jihadist” in Syria, and those who follow Sheikh Said or Said Nursi in Turkey yet defend secularism in Syria, are together assisting the AKP government. 

10.Let us not forget that at the root of all these calamities lies the system of exploitation that has made Turkey, the region, and the entire world unlivable. Those who declare—while people are slaughtering one another—that “American oil companies will invest in Syria,” and present this as an achievement, symbolize the decay produced by the imperialist-capitalist system. 

11.After two so-called “peace processes” and the change of power in Syria, Turkey has not become a safer country. Turkey’s security is the security of its people and its citizens. Turkey must immediately free itself from this system in which money rules. There is no way forward other than rising up together—for an egalitarian Republic, for secularism, and against imperialism and exploitation. Let us unite against racists, NATO supporters, and TÜSİAD circles. This will also open the path to brotherhood and genuine unity. TKP will do what it must to achieve this.