The Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) Mersin MP Perihan Koca commented on the attacks targeting Kurdish settlements in Aleppo and Turkey’s approach toward Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). She said that the government was aligning itself with armed groups that lacked legitimacy, such as HTS, driven by anti-Kurdish policies and short-term interests, and that this was targeting Syria’s multi-identity structure and the hope of peoples to live together.
Koca said that the clashes in Aleppo were threatening not only the security of the Kurds but also the possibility of a democratic future in Syria. She stressed that Turkey’s military and political stance in the region was weakening the peace and resolution debates that were claimed to be under way domestically. According to Koca, the attacks on Kurdish gains in Syria had created deep distrust among the Kurdish people in Turkey regarding any genuine will for a solution.
HTS turning its attacks towards Kurdish settlements is also creating serious concern among the Kurdish public in Turkey. You are already out in the streets with the people. On the other hand, Turkey appears to be giving almost unconditional support to HTS. How do you interpret this support by the government and the reaction of the people?
The political power is trying to postpone the areas of crisis it is facing by making short-term plans in Syria, driven both by Kurdish phobia and short-term interests. The support they give to HTS is being calculated to delay these problems for a while, but in the long term it will only deepen them.
They are relying on gangs that have no chance or capacity to be decisive in Syria’s future and that are all criminal in nature in order to deny the Kurds’ right to self-determination. These gangs have no capacity to govern Syria’s rich ethnic and religious diversity. Moreover, they also lack any legitimacy to rule Syria. The monolithic structure that Turkey is proposing through HTS has no chance of resolving Syria’s problems. The government’s support will do nothing more than further deepen the existing problems.
As it becomes clearer that these criminal gangs have no future, those who have placed all their ambitions on this horse will have to face the bitter consequences. But the worst thing is that they are throwing all the people of the region into the fire, and the public reaction you mentioned arises precisely because of this.
The reaction of the people is to Turkey’s attempt, through HTS, to destroy this will at a time when the conditions for the emergence of a democratic Syrian republic have formed, and when not only the Kurdish people but also the Arab people, the Alawite people, the Druze and the Christian peoples have turned toward this possibility. The people know very well what Syria’s future should look like. But Turkey’s rulers are doing everything they can to eliminate this possibility.
What kinds of risks do the ongoing clashes in Aleppo pose for the security and political future of the Kurds in Syria, and for a democratic life of coexistence?
Syria has long been in a state of chaos. Behind this chaos are imperialist powers and the calculations of ruling forces seeking to gain initiative in the Middle East.
People have urgent problems. There is no constitutional order; they are under economic strain, there is poverty, and there is uncertainty about the future. More than that, there is a fragile ground in which even basic life security does not exist.
While the urgent and vital needs of the peoples of Syria are clear, ethnic and religious conflicts are constantly being fueled by certain actors. There are those who aim to deliberately collapse the peoples and exhaust them through continuous war, pushing Syria into a state of deadlock and stalemate, and eliminating democratic gains.
Since the fall of the Assad regime last year and since 8 December 2024, there has been an effort to reshape Syria through occupation, annexation, and massacres, targeting Syria’s rich social fabric, its peoples, and its faiths, who are the real owners of the land. Today, attacks against the Kurdish people are a continuation of the genocidal reality directed at the Arab people and the Alawite people, and of the attacks against the Druze and Christian peoples.
These attacks, which constitute the current practice of the massacre-driven line pursued by HTS against Syria’s different national, ethnic, religious, and sectarian communities, clearly target the Kurdish people and their gains. They amount to a comprehensive assault on the will of Syria’s peoples to live together and on the vision of a shared life and a democratic Syria.
How do what is happening in Aleppo and the attacks there affect the discussions on a democratic solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey, and the perspectives on peace and resolution?
I think it will weaken the peace and resolution table. Trying to eliminate the Kurdish presence in the region, which in no way threatens Turkey and which, when viewed rationally, could even fall within Turkey’s own interests, means undermining the process of resolution at home.
It has the character of a provocation. It also reveals the intentions of Turkey’s rulers on this issue. While no concrete steps have been taken so far within the framework of the process and everything is being stretched out over time alongside the practice of crackdowns, they are also moving to dismantle the political and economic formations that the Kurds have built in Syria at great cost.
Turkey’s military presence in the region, the statements by the Ministry of National Defense that support could be provided if requested by the HTS administration, and the words of Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, ‘we will not hesitate to intervene directly when necessary,’ as well as the language and propaganda used by the mainstream media for days, clearly reveal the role Turkey has assumed in the region. They show that the attacks in Aleppo are not independent of the palace regime’s regional plans.
So, the Kurdish people ask this question: Do you want to destroy us? Tens of thousands of Kurdish politicians are in prison; municipalities have been seized through appointed trustees, and now Rojava is being threatened as well. Naturally, everyone asks: where does this leave any talk of a solution? The government is trying to throw all the peoples of this country and of Syria into a great fire. This must be seen.