Statement from ENKS on Turkey's project to return Syrian refugees: We reject demographic change processes

ARK News… At the beginning of this May, Turkey officially announced the launch of its project (voluntary return), as it puts it, to return one million Syrian refugees to it and resettle them in thirteen residential communities inside the Syrian lands adjacent to its southern borders, starting from Izaz in the west to Serê kaniyê in the east.

Regardless of the timing of the announcement of this project, which coincides with the Turkish parliamentary elections campaign and the debates that are taking place between the competing parties in it, the lack of a safe environment for the return of these people to their places of origin indicates that this project falls within the framework of the deportation of refugees and the effect of demographic change in those areas, as happened it occurs in other parts of the country, including the Afrin region.

The Kurdish National Council, while emphasizing the right of return for Syrian refugees and displaced persons wherever they are, and in accordance with International Resolution 2254, which states (emphasizes the urgent need to create favorable conditions for the safe and voluntary return of refugees and internally displaced persons to their areas of origin, and to rehabilitate the affected areas in accordance with international law) and it rejects the processes of demographic change in any part of the Syrian geography and from any side. It sees in this project a contradiction with the international resolution 2254, and a neglect of the rights of the refugees and their original properties, in addition to what it establishes of conflicts and strife between the Syrian people.

Therefore, the Council calls on Turkey to abandon this project and calls on the concerned countries with the Syrian issue to take a clear and explicit position on it and expedite the activation of the political process to find a final solution to the Syrian crisis, which guarantees the safe return of refugees and displaced persons to their homes in their original places of residence.
16/5/2022
General Secretariat
The Kurdish National Council in Syria

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