SYDNEY: The Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU) has welcomed a joint statement by Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Foreign Minister Marise Payne, saying that Australia “is deeply troubled by Turkey’s unilateral military operation into northeastern Syria”.
Prime Minister Morrison and Foreign Minister Payne further state: “Actions of this nature will have grave consequences for regional security and could significantly undermine the gains made by the international coalition in its fight against Da’esh, which remains a serious threat to regional peace and security despite its territorial defeat.”
“It will cause additional civilian suffering, lead to greater population displacement, and further inhibit humanitarian access. While Turkey has legitimate domestic security concerns, unilateral cross-border military action will not solve these concerns.”
“We have expressed this view directly to the Turkish Government.”
ANC-AU, which is the peak public affairs body of the Armenian-Australian community, has welcomed the concerns raised by the Australian government while cautioning that Turkey’s actions represent the continuation of a worrying trend.
“The ever-expansionist regime of Turkey is yet again using bogus ‘security’ and ‘terrorism’ concerns as an excuse to engage in demographic re-engineering; this time in a neighbouring country which will also undermine the years of efforts in combatting ISIS,” said ANC-AU Executive Director Haig Kayserian.
“To forcibly relocate the Syrian refugees from Turkey into northeastern Syria, while expelling the region’s Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian and other minority populations is immoral, illegal and a recipe for yet another humanitarian disaster.”
“As Armenian-Australians, our thoughts are with the tens of thousands of Armenian-Syrians currently fearing this Turkish-led escalation, and we stand with Kurdish-Australians, Assyrian-Australians and other communities calling for more to be done by Australia and its allies to prevent civilian casualties, and to call Turkey to account for this unjustified incursion into Syria,” he added.