Local Kurds: Turkey behind 'genocide' in Syria

SALEM — The unfolding military and humanitarian "disaster" in Northern Syria has hit home for a Kurdish-American family that lives in Swampscott who fears the region is witnessing a genocidal campaign by invading Turkish forces.

"As we speak now, the bombs are being dropped on top of the houses," said Seyhmus Yuksekkaya, 50, co-founder of the New England Kurdish Association.

He and his wife came by the Front Street office of U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Salem, Tuesday morning to explain the ongoing situation in a Kurdish region known as Rojava.

"I mean, what is the leverage of this? Where, where, where are we going? With one phone call, he (President Donald Trump) caused hundreds of hundreds of lives pain," Yuksekkaya said.

While his immediate family does not come from Northern Syria, he said, the stateless Kurdish people of 40 million — with Kurdistan occupying portions of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran — consider each other family.

A press release from the New England Kurdish Association states the invasion was set in motion after President Trump spoke with Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Oct. 6 and U.S. Special Forces were withdrawn from the region. Turkey is a NATO ally with the second largest military within the alliance.

Many consider this a betrayal of Kurdish forces, who fought with U.S. forces, and who lost 12,000 fighters in the fight against ISIS. The Kurds have also been guarding 11,000 captured ISIS fighters along with tens of thousands of their family members.

"I am shocked as a human being. I am shocked as a Kurd, and I am shocked as a U.S. citizen," said Yuksekkaya, who has lived in the United States for 20 years. He came to this country from southeast Turkey, which is Turkish Kurdistan. "We have got to be better than this, in my opinion."

"And I'll add to that, that I am shocked as a United States Marine veteran," Moulton said. "And I spent a lot of time on the ground in Iraq convincing allies to trust us, to literally put their lives on the line not just for their country but for ours. And they trusted us, they were willing to do that, because we said: 'We've got your back.' Trump obviously has no idea what that means."

Yuksekkaya, who no longer serves on the board of New England Kurdish Association, said that what is happening is genocide similar to the one conducted against the Kurds in 1988 in northern Iraq.

He said he came to the U.S. from Turkey for "safety, freedom, able to have a choice, able to speak your language ... able to practice your own culture if needed. As we speak, they are not allowed in Turkey. They are arresting people for speaking Kurdish. It's really fascism, I'm telling you ... What is this, exactly?"

Moulton has seen reports of Turkish soldiers executing people in the streets and murdering Kurdish politicians.

"Obviously, we are very concerned about the worldwide implications of what President Trump has done," Moulton said. "This is an unmitigated disaster. It's a security disaster. It's a humanitarian disaster. It's a strategic disaster for the United States. It also has a real effect on families right here at home in Massachusetts, because we have a lot of Kurdish families who are here with relatives, friends, who are powerless, who are literally getting massacred right now in Syria. And, we've got to find a way to stop this."

Yuksekkaya called for a no-fly zone over northern Syria and the return of U.S. troops to the region, while Moulton said sanctions need to target the Turkish president and his inner circle. Moulton was scheduled to fly back to Washington, D.C., Tuesday morning to work on these issues in Congress.