The UN’s Commission of Inquiry on Syria has released a statement that said Turkey’s airstrikes on civilian targets in northeast Syria could amount to war crimes.
“Turkish aerial attacks on power plants deprived nearly one million people of water and electricity for weeks, in violation of international humanitarian law,” the commission said on Monday. “Civilians were also killed in targeted aerial attacks fitting a pattern of Turkish drone strikes. Such attacks may amount to war crimes.”
The statement said Syria was in dire need of a ceasefire amid the worsening humanitarian crisis.
Rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), have also been criticizing Turkey’s airstrikes in the Kurdish-held regions of the war-torn country.
Last month HRW released a report holding Turkey responsible for human rights abuses and violations of land and property rights in swaths of northern Syria it controls along with its proxies.
In addition Turkey was also repeatedly accused of disrupting water supply to Kurdish-majority areas. In late 2022 HRW said Turkey’s actions exacerbated an acute water crisis and contributed to the spread of a deadly cholera outbreak.
Since 2016 Turkey has carried out successive ground operations to expel the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from Syria’s north, with its proxies now controlling two large border strips.
Ankara views the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which dominates the SDF, as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
While parts of the international community have joined Turkey in designating the PKK as a terrorist organization, Ankara’s views on the YPG have generally not been shared by its Western partners.
