No: 320, 31 October 2019, Press Release Regarding the Resolutions Adopted by the French Parliament on Operation Peace Spring

We strongly condemn and reject the resolutions adopted by the French Senate and National Assembly on Operation Peace Spring.

It is well understood that France has adopted these resolutions upon the frustration of its endeavours to establish a terror state in Syria.

By taking such steps, the French Parliament and the French government which supports these resolutions once again declared to the world that they side with PYD/YPG, the Syrian off-shoot of PKK, an EU-designated terrorist organization. For us, the attitude of the parliament of this country, where terrorists are hosted at the highest-level at the Elysée Palace, is not surprising.

Despite Turkey’s repeated warnings to its Allies against partnering with the PYD/YPG terrorist organization against another one, namely DEASH; France, under the guise of combatting DEASH, has supported a terrorist organization that poses an existential threat to Turkey’s national security and has insisted on the mistake of identifying Syrian Kurds with PYD/YPG.

The so-called “PYD/YPG romanticism”, which paralyzes the French Parliament’s and Government’s perception of reality, has blinded France’s eyes and deafened its ears against the oppression of PYD/YPG in all areas under its yoke, primarily to Arabs and the very Kurds it claims to represent as well as to Turkmens and Christians.

As previously expressed on every occasion, Operation Peace Spring was carried out on the basis of international law, in accordance with our right of self-defense outlined in Article 51 of the UN Charter and the relevant UN Security Council resolutions on the fight against terrorism. The legitimacy of the operation was also reaffirmed by our recent agreements with the US and Russia.

We previously denied or elucidated all claims raised by the members of the Parliament and Government officials during the decision-making processes in the Parliament with our statements made so far to the international community and to our foreign interlocutors at the highest level. The French Parliament's adoption of resolutions that are incompatible with facts despite all our initiatives and statements can only be explained with its bias and lack of common sense towards Turkey, and with France’s despair with respect to Syria.

No country can lecture Turkey on combating DEASH. A state that even hesitates to assume the responsibility of its citizens in Syria who joined DEASH, has no right at all to make accusations against Turkey which engaged in close quarter combat on the ground against DEASH, lost martyrs and continuously conducted counter-DEASH operations.

It is only a historical irony that those who claim that Operation Peace Spring would interrupt efforts to find a political solution to the Syrian conflict, adopted the latest of these resolutions on the very same day when the Constitutional Committee met for the first time, bringing a new impetus to the political process.

We once again invite the Parliament and Government of France to side with their NATO and European ally Turkey, not with terrorists in the fight against terrorism, and to show solidarity with Turkey.