The KCL Turkish Society Monday night issued a statement, in which it claims Turkey’s newly launched “Operation Peace Spring” as an operation intended to “protect Turkey’s territorial borders, and our Syrian and Kurdish neighbours, with whom we share cultural and mutual historical bonds with, from YPD/YPG, PKK and Daesh forces.”
In the statement, the society claims that it is a “strictly apolitical society,” but that it has found a “need to answer some of the questions directed at us from our fellow students”.
It has been less than a week since Turkey launched an incursion into northern Syria with the assent of American President Donald Trump, according to the New York Times. According to reports from the region, hundreds of Daesh, or ISIS, detainees and family members have escaped Kurdish prisons and encampments as the Turkish incursion into northern Syria began.
130,000 people displaced
Reuters writes that the Turkish move came after President Trump announced he was withdrawing American troops from Syria,  in what Kurdish forces call a betrayal. Russian-backed Syrian forces have also been deployed deep inside Kurdish-held territory south of the Turkish frontier.
On Sunday, the UN said that more than 130,000 people have been displaced from rural areas around the northeast Syrian border towns of Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ain as a result of fighting between Turkish-led forces and Kurdish militia.
In the statement from the KCL Turkish Society, it says that the fact that Turkey has been hosting more than 3 million refugees of Syrian and Kurdish descent, “goes to show that this is not an attack against Syrian, or Kurdish, civilians. Turkey is in the region to aid in developing a sustainable solution against the threat of further terrorism in the region.”
Mixed reactions
On the KCL Turkish Society’s Facebook page, one commentator says they are “very shocked by this post,” while one offers support the statement from the Society. One commentator asks “what morals do your society members have for you to overlook this and say it isn’t an attack against Kurds?”
In an op-ed written Monday night, Roar News commentator Matthew Ader claims “nothing could be further from the truth”, in reference to the KCL Turkish Society statement.
In the statement, the KCL Turkish Society says that additional statements on the military operation “are made by officials, not us, a student-led society.” Roar News has reached out to the KCL Turkish Society, but they have as of now not responded to our messages.
