Prof. Abdurrahman Gülbeyaz described the United Nations’ failure to directly name perpetrators in its Syria report as a “strategy of political protection,” stressing that such an approach paves the way for the continuation of violence.
The UN report, published on August 14, 2025, revealed that at least 1,400 Alawite and Druze civilians had been massacred in sectarian attacks in Syria, where grave violations such as torture and executions also took place. The report listed groups such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Turkey-backed Sultan Shah Brigade, Hamza Division, and the 400th Division as the main perpetrators of the attacks; however, these groups were not explicitly defined as the central culprits. This approach is perceived as a form of indirect protection or acquittal of those groups, while the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with their pluralistic and ethno-sectarian model, do not receive sufficient international support.
Prof. Dr. Abdurrahman Gülbeyaz answered ANF’s questions on the UN report and recent developments in Syria.
The UN report does not directly identify HTS and Turkey-backed groups as perpetrators. In your view, is this a strategy of political protection?
The question is highly topical, and the events and processes that shape the global agenda, especially in regions where Kurds live (the Middle East, the Eastern Mediterranean Basin, the Caucasus), have the unfortunate habit of changing at an astronomical pace. For that reason, anyone who wishes to make meaningful statements about the current agenda must, like stock speculators who spend their lives staring at a wall of monitors to react to market swings that may occur at any moment, devote themselves to tracking the chaotic and ambiguous movements of this churn.
I will try to answer your question not by looking at this churn, the visible face and surface of the agenda, but by looking at the deeper structural factors and mechanisms that make the constantly shifting events possible, that pre-configure, trigger, and direct them. What distinguishes these factors and mechanisms is that they are more enduring and long term.”
Protection for the new rulers of Damascus
The report published by United Nations human rights inspectors following the investigation of war crimes committed against Syrian Alawites is a grotesque report. It is grotesque because, in the end, the report merely states: ‘There is widespread and systematic violence targeting Alawite communities, likely including war crimes (murder, torture, inhumane acts, desecration of corpses, abduction of Alawite women, looting, and property confiscation, etc.).’
First, there is no need to establish a UN commission and interview 200 people in order to state this much with such careful wording. Everyone already knows that the situation is far more dire. The main task of a commission that uses the resources of the UN should be to gather and verify information about the perpetrators. Yet precisely at that point, it chooses not to do anything of significance, and instead makes statements such as, ‘No evidence was found that the attacks were related to the government or centrally organized.’ In my view, and as your question suggested, this interpretation is indeed reasonable: the UN report is above all concerned with sheltering the new rulers of Damascus under its wings.
Two points on the grotesque nature of the report
I want to emphasize two points regarding the reasons behind the grotesque nature of this report:
* The first is the institution called the UN itself. We must resist the widespread forgetfulness about what this institution’s founding mission, essence, and function actually are. The UN is nothing more than a tool used to legitimize and manage the interests of a handful of dominant states that can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Its so-called ‘rhetoric of justice and equality,’ which has practically become the institution’s creed, serves no purpose other than to mask and camouflage a ruthless mechanism of power designed to safeguard the geopolitical interests of the permanent members.
The body we call the UN was established in 1945 to preserve indefinitely the interests of the five permanent members, the three victors of the imperialist age’s two great wars of division in the capitalist West (the United States, Great Britain, and France) along with the two powerful representatives of the socialist world (the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China) and to control the potential risks that could arise from the confrontations following the Second World War. Concepts such as democracy, equality, universal justice, or universal human rights have no place in the nature of this institution. Even today, institutional power lies entirely in the hands of the five permanent members, the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom, who possess absolute power through the mechanism of absolute veto. In this sense, the UN is essentially the backroom of a global oligarchy, one that is itself rife with irreconcilable internal contradictions.
The General Assembly, composed of 163 countries with a single vote each and no power of enforcement, exists only to preserve the appearance of legitimacy. Another dimension where the UN’s configuration of power manifests is the financial one. At the UN, whoever pays the piper calls the tune, and both the overt and covert agendas of the UN and its sub-organs are set accordingly. Likewise, in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, voting rights can be purchased with money; the wealthiest hold power, and they use this unlimited power solely to further increase their wealth. From time to time, individuals such as U Thant, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, or Kofi Annan are appointed as UN Secretary-General, but this is no different than occasionally placing an alarm clock in the shop window of a circumciser’s store.
The commission and the records of those who lead it
*The second point I wish to emphasize is directly related to the first. The UN report on the systematic massacres against Syrian Alawites was signed by the ‘Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic,’ a body established and authorized by the UN. The profiles of those at the head of this commission are among the main factors behind the grotesque nature of this report. The individuals leading the commission possess profiles that are almost standardized, not very different from those leading other similar UN commissions. Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, Hanny Megally, and Lynn Welchman are introduced and recognized as academics, jurists, and human rights defenders. In other words, they were appointed not because they possess deep knowledge of the Middle Eastern hercümerç (I prefer to repeat this term instead of simply saying chaos or turmoil, since its etymology is far more suitable to Middle Eastern realities: its roots come from the Aramaic-Syriac word for ‘killing’ and the Persian word for ‘death’), but because they have records sufficiently state-friendly and system-compliant to earn the favor of the dominant powers that hold the reins of the UN. I do not wish to be unfair here. Hanny Megally is, of course, someone who knows the Middle East from the inside and has in the past made accurate statements regarding the treatment of Kurds. Pinheiro too is an international law expert who has made accurate observations and statements about Kurds. Yet such individual virtues carry no weight against the long-term foundational parameters of the system.
Let us not overlook Professor Lynn Welchman, a legal scholar specializing in the Middle East and North Africa. Since the early 1980s, Welchman has worked with Al-Haq, one of the five Palestinian NGOs placed on Israel’s list of terrorist organizations. For Welchman, the Middle East essentially means Palestine. As far as I know, her only statement concerning the Kurds was an accusation that the SDF subjected ISIS detainees in the Hol camp to ‘inhumane treatment.’ The rest, as the saying goes, speaks for itself.
What legal responsibilities arise under international law from the role of Turkey-backed groups in the massacres of Alawites and Druze?
The involvement of armed groups supported by Turkey in massacres targeting Alawite and Druze civilians entails legal sanctions both for individuals and for the state. Under criminal law, intentional killing of civilians, torture, rape, forced detention, and displacement constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity. In such cases, not only the direct perpetrators but also commanders who knew of these acts and failed to prevent or punish them are liable under the doctrine of ‘command responsibility.’ Even if the state concerned is not a party to the International Criminal Court (ICC), investigations may still be pursued under the principle of universal jurisdiction in some countries.
State responsibility manifests on three axes depending on the degree of concrete involvement:
* If effective overall control over the supported groups is proven, the acts of these groups can be attributed to the state, and the violations are considered as the state’s own actions.
* If de facto control reaches the level of public authority in foreign territory, the law of occupation comes into force. In that case, the occupying power has obligations to protect civilians, maintain public order and security, prevent violations, conduct effective investigations, and punish perpetrators. Failure to fulfill these obligations can trigger criminal sanctions.
* When a state knowingly and materially contributes to international wrongful acts committed by others, it bears responsibility for ‘aiding and abetting.’ This includes the provision of weapons, logistics, financing, or intelligence support.
The obligation to take preventive measures
If the attacks point to the existence of a specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a religious or ethnic group, and if the risk of this intent being carried out has approached the threshold, then the obligations of ‘prevention’ and ‘punishment’ under the Genocide Convention come into effect. The mere existence of reasonable grounds to believe such a risk exists is sufficient to trigger the duty of states to take preventive measures. Moreover, if serious violations of jus cogens norms are at stake, obligations also arise for third states: not to recognize such situations, not to aid or cooperate, and to contribute collectively through lawful means to bringing the violations to an end.
The prerequisite for all of this is that international legal mechanisms function in a genuinely fair manner, without allowing justice to be sacrificed to political calculations. As is well known, UN reports and independent reports have, for years, repeatedly pointed to grave violations, including crimes against humanity, in areas controlled by Turkey-linked groups, and they have called on Turkey to prevent these violations and prosecute the perpetrators.