Pickups crowded with women and children, streets blocked by lines of cars fleeing the Kurdish Syrian zone bombed by the Turks. These are the scenes described by journalists present Thursday, October 10 in Ras al-Ain, in northern Syria, the day after the outbreak of the Turkish offensive. "The civilians are leaving the [Syrian Kurd] area, they are panicking, they can not take refuge in Turkey, they are packing up but do not know where to go," reports Shona Bhattacharyya, France 24's special envoy to Akçakale, a few hundred meters from the Turkish-Syrian border.

In less than two days, heavy artillery fire and Turkish air strikes left more than 60,000 displaced "fleeing the border areas, particularly the Ras al-Ain and Derbassiyé areas," according to the report. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH). These displaced people are heading towards the Syrian city of Hassake, further east, the NGO said.

The military operation, dubbed "Source of Peace" by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, aims to weaken the Kurdish armed forces of northern Syria, including the YPG, which he considers a terrorist threat at the gates of Turkey . "The goal is not peace," says Gauthier Rybinski, international columnist on France 24.

The Turkish President spoke in his address to the United Nations on September 24, 2019, his plan for the establishment of a "corridor of peace" in northeastern Syria, to "allow the installation of 2 millions of [Syrian refugees] with the support of the international community ".

Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to control the region with a buffer zone on its border and relieve Turkey of the two million Syrian refugees, who are mostly Arabs, to eliminate the Kurds and replace it with Arabs who will be indebted to Erdogan, which is nothing less than ethnic cleansing, "says Gauthier Rybinski.

Mass expulsion

"The term ethnic cleansing is a bit excessive," said Étienne Copeaux, a historian specializing in Turkish nationalism. He prefers to speak of "mass expulsion", as was the case in the Syrian city of Afrin in March 2018. After encircling the locality, inhabited among others by Kurds and Yazidis, Turkey and its allied forces displaced about 150,000 people who had sought refuge in neighboring areas.

Some of these IDPs, who managed to return home a few months later, discovered that their properties had been confiscated and their property stolen by armed groups allied to Turkey, Amnesty International said in contact with refugees. Afrin.

"Urbicide"

Is this the fate that is waiting for displaced people from northeastern Syria? Étienne Copeaux recalls that mass expulsions are a frequent practice. Thus, in several Turkish cities inhabited by Kurds and which were the scene of clashes between PKK rebels and Turkish forces between 2015 and 2016, entire neighborhoods were razed by the authorities. This is the case in Diyarbakir, capital of Turkish Kurdistan or Nusaybin, which is located on the Syrian border.

"The specialists even speak of 'urbicide' to designate the annihilation of the urban and architecture to remove a culture," says Étienne Copeaux. And the researcher recalled that until the 1990s, Kurdish culture was totally denied by Turkey. As proof, he argues, it was still forbidden to say a word of Kurdish in Turkish territory on pain of going to prison.

Anti-Kurdish resentment

Especially as the Turkish public opinion, this operation "Source of peace" is primarily a security interest. "Recep Tayyip Erdogan does not hesitate to brandish the Kurdish scarecrow because it works," said Gauthier Rybinski. The Turkish president, whose party, the AKP, was defeated in the last legislative elections in April, needs to raise its popularity rating with a nationalist electorate.

Especially since nationalism is still alive in Turkey and part of the Turkish population would not want to hear about the Kurds, says Étienne Copeaux: "The PKK attacks and the dozens of young Turkish soldiers who died at the front during military operations Kurdish localities in Turkey remain in memory, there is a real anti-Kurdish racism ".

Another historical reason legitimizing the attack of northern Syria with the Turkish electorate: "An old Turkish claim dating from the end of the First World War would like those [Syrian] territories that had been lost by the Ottoman Empire to benefit of the French mandate at the time, are one day recovered by the Turks, "says Gauthier Rybinski. A historical reading that echoes among Turkish nationalists Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeks to content by attacking Syrian Kurds.

Concern over jihadists held prisoner by Kurdish forces