Kurdish Commander Calls on Trump to Prevent ‘Ethnic Cleansing’

[TomSea]

Kurdish Commander Calls on Trump to Prevent ‘Ethnic Cleansing’
The SDF’s Gen. Mazloum Abdi wants international observers to stop Turkish-backed forces from displacing the Kurds.
By Lara Seligman | December 16, 2019, 3:56 PM

Gen. Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has a message for U.S. President Donald Trump: The United States must act now to bring Turkey in line with the terms of the U.S.-brokered cease-fire agreement and stop Ankara’s campaign to drive the vulnerable Kurdish minority out of Syria.

In an interview with Foreign Policy, Abdi called on Trump to enforce the Oct. 17 agreement negotiated by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence to end Turkey’s violent incursion into northeastern Syria that began Oct. 9. In particular, the Turks are violating the condition that both sides would safeguard religious and ethnic minorities inside the 20-mile zone Turkey seized from the Kurdish forces, Abdi said.

“Mr. President … the Turks are doing ethnic cleansing inside this area as they did in Afrin,” Abdi said, referring to Turkey’s bloody 2018 invasion of the majority-Kurdish Afrin district in northwestern Syria. “America should not allow forced changes in demography and ethnic cleansing in the 21st century.”

Read more at: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/16/kurdish-commander-mazloum-abdi-trump-prevent-ethnic-cleansing-kurds-turkey/