Turkish President Erdoğan is being hosted in the UK, meanwhile Turkish troops commit another massacre in northern Syria

Protest against Turkish invasion
Tom Anderson


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was hosted at 10 Downing Street on Tuesday 3 December alongside other NATO leaders. He will be attending the NATO summit, happening on 3 and 4 December near London.

Erdoğan has also reportedly been invited to the opening ceremony of a mosque in Cambridge.

Protests took place on 3 December against the NATO summit. The Kurdistan Solidarity Network tweeted:

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One protester tweeted from Trafalgar Square:

Invasion of Northeast Syria

Turkish-led forces invaded Northeast Syria (aka Rojava) on 9 October. The NATO member has faced accusations of ethnic cleansing and war crimes, and its invasion has so far killed over 300 civilians, created around 300,000 displaced people, and allowed hundreds of Daesh (Isis/Isil) supporters to escape detention.

The latest Turkish massacre

On Monday 2 December, eight children and two adults were killed by Turkish shelling in the city of Tel Rifaat. According to the Rojava Information Center:

UNICEF released a statement on the killing of the children:

We are shocked and saddened at reports that eight children were killed and another eight were injured in attacks on Tal Rifaat town, northern Aleppo. All of them were under the age of 15.

The Rojava Information Center tweeted a list of further Turkish atrocities:

Message to Jens

British internationalist volunteer in Rojava Dani Ellis recorded a video message to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg:

In it she says:

This is an invasion where one NATO airforce keeps the skies open for another to bomb ambulances and murder aid workers with complete impunity. This is an invasion where former members of notorious Islamist organisations, paid, dressed, equipped and commanded by a NATO army, are committing ethnic cleansing on NATO’s behalf.

International campaign RiseUp4Rojava tweeted:

Call to take to the streets

On 3 December, KCDK-E, a European Kurdish organisation, called for people to take to the streets over the killings in Tel Rifaat:

In response to the civilian massacres and attacks we call on our people and all solidarity circles to take to the streets.

Featured image via RiseUp4Rojava

Get involved

Tom Anderson is part of the Shoal Collective, a cooperative producing writing for social justice and a world beyond capitalism. Twitter: @shoalcollective

  • Join a demonstration against the Turkish invasion.
  • Kurdish activists are calling for people to boycott Turkey. To find out all the ways you can do this, visit Boycott Turkey.
  • Riseup4Rojava and Boycott Turkey are calling on people globally to take action against the companies supplying arms to Turkey.

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