[FACT CHECK] The @nytimes recently published an article ab…

The Afrin canton has seen virtually no combat during the Syrian Civil War. Religious minorities were protected under the AANES and its predecessors in this overwhelmingly Kurdish region. An estimated 316,000 internally-displaced Syrians - both Kurdish and Arab - fled to Afrin.

The invasion’s raison d'être does not hold up to scrutiny. Turkey accused the PYD/YPG forces in Afrin of launching “more than 700 attacks” against Turkish cities. However, upon further investigation, only 15 confirmed incidents of cross-border attacks from Afrin emerged.

Over half of Afrin’s majority-Kurdish population were forcefully displaced by Turkey’s invasion and prevented from returning. Around 400,000 Syrian Arabs were settled in the region. Currently, Arabs and Turkmen make up around 75% of the population…

...Together with Turkey’s erasure of the Kurdish language and culture in occupied Afrin, this amounts to a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing and a prosecutable crime against humanity.

The invasion of Afrin was conducted with the help of proxy militias, many of which adhere to fundamentalist Sunni Islam. These fighters were recruited from radical groups in Syria, such as HTS and ISIS. They stand accused of committing war crimes in Afrin.

Furthermore, occupied Afrin - the ‘de facto safe zone’ described by the author - is plagued by the kidnapping of Yazidi and Kurdish women and girls - over 150 to date - as well as other violent crimes, many of which are perpetrated by Turkey’s proxy militias.

In fact, Turkey’s invasion severely damaged Afrin’s infrastructure. 64 schools and important health and water facilities were destroyed (Afrin hospital alone was bombed three times). The 2018 invasion was thus severely destabilizing for the region.

Turkey stands accused of similar crimes in Afrin. Around 300,000 forest and olive trees have been cut down since the invasion. More than 10,000 ha of arable land has been burned down - with much of the remaining agricultural produce, including its olives, being sold in Turkey.

The Turkish language is not "the choice of the people." Rather, Turkey has embarked on a forceful Turkification campaign in occupied Afrin, with mandatory Turkish language lessons in schools and its implementation as a language of administration in the region.