WEBVTT - The ISIS Detainees in AANES and Why the International Community Won’t Help 0:00:05.240 --> 0:00:08.600 Hi everyone. It's me James today and I'm joined by 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:11.720 Meghan Bodette, who's the director of research at the Kurdish 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:15.200 Peace Institute. We're picking up where we left off at 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:19.200 the end of last week to discuss more about the 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:24.080 Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria and perhaps more specifically, 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:29.319 to talk about the detainees, the ISIS detainees in the 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:32.159 Al Whole camp and in other camps around there. How 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:34.480 are you, Megan, I'm doing well. 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:36.479 Thank you, James. Thank you for having me on for 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:41.440 this important conversation about a really critical security and humanitarian 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:44.400 issue that we're seeing in North East Syria these days. Yeah. 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.280 Thanks, thanks for joining us. So I think to start 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:49.920 out with, would you be comfortable giving us sort of 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:55.920 baseline explanation of what's happening with these ISIS detainees and 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.720 why despite the fact that many of them are citizens 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:01.920 of other countries, they haven't been a returned there. 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:05.520 Yeah, that's a very important place to start with. So essentially, 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:09.560 after the territorial defeat of ISIS in twenty and nineteen 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:14.880 by the Syrian Democratic Forces and the international coalition, the 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:18.039 Syrian Democratic Forces and the Autonomous Administration, which is the 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:22.399 political body governing northeast Syria ended up with tens of 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:27.720 thousands of ISIS detainees and the family members of these 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:31.800 ISIS members as well. And in the Alhol camp you 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:36.520 now have a population of essentially ISIS affiliated women and 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:40.520 the children of ISIS members who are now housed in 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:45.360 that camp as well. And this camp is a serious 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:48.560 humanitarian issue. You have these children who are in very 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:53.000 difficult conditions. It's a massive security problem for the surrounding 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:56.200 Syrian and Iraqi communities that were victimized by ISIS, and 0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:00.360 the world ISIS openly wants to reconstitute itself. It is 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:04.480 operating inside the camp clandestinely to reconstitute itself. It wants 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:07.360 to break prisoners out and go right back to its 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:12.000 genocidal policies against minorities in the region like Yazidis and Christians, 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:15.160 and to continue terror attacks not only in Iraq and Syria, 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.280 but around the world. It's also a real drain on 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.960 the resources of the Autonomous Administration and the SDF themselves, 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:24.639 who we have to remember are not a state actor, 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:26.919 but are dealing with the sort of problems that even 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:30.640 the wealthiest and most militarily established state actors would have 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:33.920 trouble with, so they've ended up in this unenviable position 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:37.440 of having to take care of essentially criminals from around 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:41.120 the world who came to their country to commit mass atrocities, 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.480 while the victims of these ISIS crimes across Northern and 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:48.440 Eastern Syria and victims of the subsequent Turkish invasions that 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.280 a Northern and Eastern Syria suffered during and after the 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:55.080 fight against ISIS really lack basic resources. Now, this is 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:56.720 something I heard a lot on the ground when I 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:59.320 was in the region in February and March, speaking to 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.600 people from off which was invaded and occupied by Turkey 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:06.200 in twenty eighteen, and to people from Sera, Kanya and 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:08.880 Tel Abyad which were invaded and occupied by Turkey in 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:13.160 twenty nineteen. Many of them asked rightly why there were 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:17.960 so many resources from international bodies and NGOs and governments 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:22.720 provided towards the ISIS detainees in al Hole and the 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:26.880 ISIS affiliated individuals there when they're communities, their families who 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:29.520 had done nothing other than simply living in areas that 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.360 Turkey decided to invade and occupy, who were displaced because 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:36.120 of that. In what experts, including myself, would refer to 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.640 as ethnic cleansing. These communities are receiving nothing from the 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.920 international community. You know, they feel forgotten and they have 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:47.040 some serious questions about that. Of course, the Autonomous Administration 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:49.960 has many needs and many pressing security problems that it 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.640 simply can't devote enough resources to when it's tasked with 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:57.320 managing the world's ISIS members. So in a recent study 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:00.520 that we published at the Kurdish Peace Institute by journalist 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:02.680 Matt Broomfield, who spent a lot of time on the 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:05.040 ground in North East Syria during and after the defeat 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:08.520 of ISIS, he found that just four percent of foreign 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:12.160 ISIS fighters held by Syrian Kurdish authorities have been repatriated 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:16.600 since twenty nineteen four percent. The most of the repatriations 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.720 have been women and children, not the fighters themselves who 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.280 are housed in prisons. But of course the women and 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:25.039 children are a humanitarian issue and a security issue too, 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.960 so think about that. Those are really dangerous numbers. 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:34.039 Yeah, I think that differentiation between like fighters and women 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.000 and children is interesting and perhaps one we should like 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.200 pick apart a little bit, because there's a bit we 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:42.800 talked about this before. We recorded, like there's a betrayal 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:46.560 certainly of like Western women who went to join ISIS 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:52.040 as having been sort of victims in their own right, 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:54.160 which some of them were very young, right and might 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:57.200 not have been making like adult choices at that time. 0:04:57.240 --> 0:04:59.159 And that's that's one thing. But like a lot of 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:03.560 these people willingly participated in an extremely oppressive and violent 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.919 regime and they sort of a being that they're often 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.360 not portrayed as such in the press. Is that fair 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:10.760 to say? 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.200 Absolutely? Look, what I always go back to when I 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:17.839 talk about this issue is reading accounts from UZD women 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:22.040 and children who survived ISIS captivity, who've said on multiple 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:25.160 occasions that the women were no less brutal than the men, 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:29.440 and that they were willing participants in every aspect of 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:34.600 the worst of ISIS crimes of genocide, of crimes against humanity, 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.719 against the ZD people and of course all the other 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:41.360 peoples that ISIS targeted. So that I think when you 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:46.000 have these genocide survivors saying that no, these women participated 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.839 fully in these crimes, they facilitated these crimes, They made 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:54.400 this system of genocide of crimes against humanity possible. That's 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:56.640 something we have to listen to and I'm glad that 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.440 you bring up the Western media portrayal because you really 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:03.640 see this idea that the women could not have been 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:07.760 perpetrators themselves, when what we hear on the ground is 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.159 that that's not true, and what legal cases have begun 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:12.680 to find is that that's not true either. There's been 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:17.880 trials in Europe for ISIS affiliated women for their complicity 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:22.000 in acts of genocide against the Uzdi community. And you know, 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.080 one point that you hear very commonly on the ground 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:28.840 is that how can there have only been one or two, 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:31.840 just a handful of trials. I'm not sure the exact number. 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:34.839 But after all of these people missing, all of these 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:39.080 people killed, how are all of these ISIS members? And 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.839 that's why I said, you know ISIS affiliated women, because 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:43.320 I don't think I do agree with you. It's a 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:45.880 disservice to just refer to them as ISIS brides or 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:50.720 whatever sensationalistic media framing you have. These people simply aren't 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.760 being put on trial. And one of the reasons for 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.720 that is that when we come to female members of ISIS, 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.440 there is this perception, both in media and from governance, 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:06.040 from international institutions that these women are victims that because 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:11.080 they're women, because they subscribed willingly to a political and 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:14.880 ideological system that was very very oppressive of women, that 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:19.440 puts women only into certain roles as housewives, as mothers 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.640 of the next generation of ISIS. That these women couldn't 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:27.280 have committed atrocities, but they have. They did, And you 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:29.000 know what we're hearing right now, and some of the 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:31.680 reporting that's coming out of Northeast Syria is that even 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:37.640 within the camps, these women have continued to commit some 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:41.480 of the most serious abuses that ISIS has been committing. 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:47.920 There's reports that they have raped, sexually assaulted the teenage 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:52.360 boys who are in the camp in order to essentially 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:56.880 become pregnant and raise more children to create that next 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:00.960 generation of ISIS that they seek to create. This continued 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:05.080 perpetration of sexual violence against these boys who've done nothing 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:07.720 other than had the misfortune to have their parents be 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:10.400 members of ISIS. You know, this is a very very 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.360 serious allegation. The reporting about this is something that needs 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.120 to be taken very seriously. Like I said, this is 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:20.160 a massive human rights crisis for these children, and it 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.680 is you know, these women are no less dangerous and 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:27.880 no less culpable for their crimes than their male counterparts 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:29.360 who joined isis. 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:31.560 Yeah, I think that's just very fair to say, and 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.080 it's somewhat of a like sexist outlook to be like 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:36.439 a women couldn't have had agency in the way that 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:41.400 men clearly have been held accountable for. And I think 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:45.280 it's that the last issue you rate. It's obviously pretty horrible, 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:49.640 but also we should at least dig into a little bit. 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:53.600 I think, like the ongoing like not only the abuse 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:56.239 of children, but like the sort of attempt to indoctrinate 0:08:56.320 --> 0:09:00.880 children into that same like extremist ideology to even like 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:03.760 I've seen videos of kids training with little wooden guns, 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:08.080 and yeah, I'm sort of raising another generation of people 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:12.920 who believe in this kind of painful outlook. And can 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:14.720 you talk a little bit about how common that is 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:17.280 or I guess you don't know entirely, but can you 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:18.240 speak to that a little bit. 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:20.880 Yeah, I mean that is something that none of us 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.640 know how common it is because of the sort of 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:27.160 difficulty of accessing that information. But if you look at 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:31.000 what is coming in from sources from North and East Syria, 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:36.640 from international reporting on the camp, these women are indoctrinating 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:41.240 their children into the ISIS ideology. They have said many 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:43.800 times over in many of their communications that their goal 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:48.120 is to raise the next generation of ISIS fighters. There's 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.600 no reason to believe that the majority of these women 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:54.360 have given up on their beliefs, and there is evidence 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.720 that this is what they're trying to do. And of course, 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.440 when you look at the broader situation that these children 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:04.720 are in, it's a situation that's exceedingly conducive to radicalization 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.880 because of the poor conditions in the camps, because of 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.040 the fact that they remain with their mothers, many of 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.040 whom believe firmly in ISIS ideology and who see the 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.600 role of women in ISIS as doing exactly that, as 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:24.280 passing down this ideology. And you know, when these children 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.960 they can't be safely repatriated to their countries, they can't 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:29.120 be put into safe environments where they can receive the 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:33.080 support they need, the positive influences, they need, any kind 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:37.240 of medical or psychological help that they need. In these conditions, 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:42.280 it's inevitable that you're going to have the continuation of 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:46.439 this ISIS ideology being perpetrated and the adults there, these 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:52.080 women continuing to pass this down on these children, who 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:55.160 again have done nothing to be put in the situation 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:58.319 that they're in. They're continuing to be victimized by the 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:02.520 actions of their parents and the other ISIS members. So 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.400 and the international community too as a fault here for 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:11.199 refusing to repatriate at least these children and to try 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:15.440 ISIS perpetrators of war crimes, kinds against humanity and genocide. 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:18.319 Yeah, in some cases they've even been like had their 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.000 citizenship striped from them of the countries that they came from. 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:23.880 The UK have done that for example, right, which is 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:29.760 kind of just failing to do anything to acknowledge it, 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:33.240 like this is an international problem that they have completely. 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:36.440 And that's something we can get into, is the international 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:41.840 dynamic surrounding these issues, because it's obviously very closely related 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:44.520 to the ISIS issue, but it touches on so many 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:46.840 other very internationalized conflicts as well. 0:11:47.240 --> 0:12:01.640 Yeah, let's do that. Perhaps before we explain the way 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.320 the nations that are more distant from this are engaging 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:07.840 with it, we should talk about how nations that are 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:11.360 more proximal to this are engaging within specifically, how at 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:15.480 times it seems like Turkish drone strikes, which we've discussed 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:19.160 previously on our podcasts, so people be familiar with them, 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:25.120 have the very least not helped the SDF to keep 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:29.320 these camps secure, right, And in some cases it's you 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:32.760 can see, like there's a video that the YPJ have 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.839 of like these people celebrating a drone strike inside the camp, 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.120 and can you talk about the impact these drone strikes have. 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:46.359 Look Something that has been reported by journalists, by local sources, 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:50.360 and by all sorts of international researchers and experts since 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.199 the earliest days of the war against ISIS is that 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:58.240 Turkey wanted ISIS to succeed in its mission of taking 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.560 over Northern Iraq and Northern State area in order to 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:06.880 not only destroy Kurdish political and military structures operating there, 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:10.600 including the YPG, the YPJ, the later the SDF, and 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:14.960 the Autonomous Administration, but also to destroy the social base 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:19.080 for any form of Kurdish autonomy, any kind of multi 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:22.760 ethnic project to potentially be able to exist there, either 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:27.360 now or in the future. And this facilitation of the 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.800 rise of ISIS reached such a level that you've had 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:35.640 legal experts through the Yazidi Justice Committee, which published an 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:39.720 in depth report on this last year find based on 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:43.199 a review of the evidence that Turkey was quote complicit 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:46.920 in the commission of genocide end quote by ISIS by 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:49.559 allowing fighters to cross its borders to join the group, 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:53.320 allowing ISIS related economic activity to go on, and other 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:56.840 forms of facilitation of the rise of ISIS when it 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:00.720 was committing its most serious crimes. So this is not 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:05.400 something new. The way that these drone strikes specifically impact 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:09.199 this issue. They're part of the broader Turkish campaign of 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:13.280 aggression against northeast Syria. Obviously, the two ground invasions of 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:17.200 Afrin and of Sera Kanya and Talabyad had very negative 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:21.040 impacts on the fight against ISIS. And the drone strikes now, 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.320 first of all, they make it difficult for any SDF 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:27.920 or autonomous administration structure to simply do the day to 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:31.840 day work of providing security and providing the government. You know, 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:34.120 if a government official or a member of the local 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:38.560 security forces has to modify their behavior, has to modify 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.440 where they go, how they interact with their constituents. You know, 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.240 what kind of missions they can conduct to avoid being 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:46.880 assassinated in a drone strike. They're simply not going to 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:51.000 be as effective. Right, So this is a problem in 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:54.640 many areas. It certainly impacts the counter ISIS mission, and 0:14:54.720 --> 0:15:01.000 Turkey has specifically started to increasingly target ans, SDF and 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:05.680 Asayish internal security forces personnel who are directly engaged in 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:10.040 counter ISIS missions. We saw this in late twenty twenty 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:14.120 two when there were severe Turkish air operations following a 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:18.520 bombing in Istanbul that Turkey, based on all evidence, falsely 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:23.000 attempted to attribute to Kurdish groups despite there being no 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:31.400 real evidence supporting that claim. These attacks targeted civilians, civilian infrastructure, 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:36.200 and SDF forces engaged in key counter ISIS missions, including 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:40.800 SDF forces involved in securing the Alhole camp. And now 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:43.680 we've even started to see in addition to these anti 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:48.040 SDF anti autonomous administration drone strikes, Turkey's been using drones 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:52.880 to fire essentially warning shots at the international coalition led 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:55.920 by the US and the other coalition countries itself. We 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:58.080 saw this in November when there was a drone strike 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:02.000 on the joint SDF coalition base where the SDF and 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:06.080 the international community worked together to plan ongoing counter ISIS missions, 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:10.200 and earlier this year, in i believe April of this year, 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:14.040 the drone strike on Sulimania International Airport in Iraqi Kurdastan, 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:18.600 where there was a joint SDF coalition convoy where SDF 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:21.600 Commander in Chief Muslim Kobani was present and US forces 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:26.400 were also present. That strike, for all intents and purposes, 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:30.640 was Turkey's attempt not only to threaten the SDF and 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:34.400 the Autonomous Administration, but to threaten the coalition as well, 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:39.440 specifically for its continuing counter ISIS partnership with Syrian Kurds. 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:42.320 So this has risen to a level where Turkey is 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:45.840 not only using these to disrupt governance and security at 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:49.120 the local level in the Autonomous Administration, it's not only 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:53.960 using them against locally led SDFYPG led counter ISIS missions, 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:58.400 but Turkey is using drones to threaten the entire global 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:02.520 counter ISIS campaign, of which on paper is formally a member. 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:03.520 So there you go. 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:07.640 Yeah, and Turkey is kind of it's We've talked about 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:12.280 this again before, how it pressured like newer NATO members 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:17.040 Finland and Sweden to even stop accepting Kurdish refugees. Right, 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:20.639 It's yeah, while at the same time being a member 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:24.400 of NATO and as you say, also like drone striking 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:30.000 other members of NATO. It's certainly like it's making it 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:33.480 as hard as possible for people in this part of 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.199 the world to have the stability and peace and the 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:38.439 things that they fought so hard for for such a 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:42.040 long time. I wonder if you can talk about, like, so, 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:45.560 what is the into as far as the international community exists, 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.199 which is a pretty nebulous thing to really kind of 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:53.080 pin down, but is what is specifically like this US 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:55.080 led coalition to the fea isis. I think they call 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:59.440 it doing to help and like I guess a little 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:03.120 more broadly, building on that, this coalition has a very 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:05.600 narrow focus in a place where there are a lot 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:11.119 of different aggresses to include various other Islamist groups, to 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:15.600 include the Turkish State and obviously the day the state 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.080 in Syria. Can you explain a little bit about how 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:22.560 the mission of this coalition is narrow in a way 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:25.200 that helps it doing the things that people on the 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:27.719 ground they need to ensure peace and stability. 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:31.520 Yeah, exactly. That's a really important question because, as you said, 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:37.480 this international relationship with North Eastyria is very narrowly built 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:41.200 on a counter Isis focus, which means a military focus. 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:46.320 So there's relationships between security forces and security forces. What 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:49.879 we don't see our political relationships. And this connects to 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:53.400 a wide variety of issues related to this immediate problem 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:58.200 of ISIS, of securing ISIS prisoners, of bringing ISIS perpetrators 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.359 of genocide and war crimes to justice. But it also 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:04.439 connects to the deeper problem of the kind of long 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:09.160 term stability in Syria that's necessary to end this ongoing 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:11.880 civil war, to bring justice to the victims of ISIS 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:15.320 and to all other abuses and atrocities during the twelve 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:18.359 years of conflict in Syria, and to prevent the next 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:22.800 endless war in this region from inevitably taking place in 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:27.159 the future. So we have this narrow military partnership. The 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:30.359 reason that this relationship evolved in this way was going 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:34.920 back to the role of Turkey, because the United States 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.720 and its European allies had no other option but to 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.840 partner with Kurdish groups if they wanted to achieve a 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:44.679 territorial defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. There was 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.080 no force other than the SDF and the YPG and 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:52.520 the YPGA at that time that would be capable of 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:58.239 the military responsibility of defeating ISIS. It was essentially, if 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:02.640 people remember the resistance the YPG and the YPJ at 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:07.320 Kobani in northeast northeastern Syria that held out long enough 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:10.760 where the United States and the international Coalition realized that 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:13.480 their only option if they wanted to defeat ISIS on 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:17.760 the ground was to partner with these forces. Before that, also, 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:22.480 we're recording this in August, the situation in Sinjar where 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:26.160 ISIS had gone in, had committed genocide against the Azdi community, 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:28.920 and we're the only people who were able to actually 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:32.960 come in and help Uzidis defend themselves and evacuate refugees 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:36.600 to safety in Syria, where again the YPG, the YPJ 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:41.640 and the PKK gorillas as well. Because these Kurdish forces 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:45.440 were able to help local civilians in Sinjar defend themselves 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:48.800 and evacuate so many refugees to safety, it forced the 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:52.920 international community's hand to act. The PKK intervened in Sinjar 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.560 to start that humanitarian mission on August fourth. US air 0:20:56.600 --> 0:21:00.520 strikes began on August seventh. It was this local response 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:04.119 from these non state actors that forced the international community. 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.360 You know, these states with actual treaty obligations to respond 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:11.800 to and prevent massatrocities, to take action. But because Turkey 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:14.680 views the PKK as a terrorist group, it views the 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:18.000 YPG and the YPG as indistinguishable from the PKK and 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:21.760 therefore as a terrorist group. The entire counter ISIS mission 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:24.639 from the very beginning was faced with this question of 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:27.280 how these states that wanted to fight ISIS could do 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:31.400 so without offending their relationships with Turkey as a member 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:36.159 of NATO and an ally in other respects. So this 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:39.399 connects specifically to the ISIS issue, not only because the 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.639 contradiction here dates back to the counter ISIS campaign, but 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:49.600 because actual international trials for ISIS members, actual security policies 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:53.480 that could address the problems in al Hole would legitimize 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:57.480 the SDF and the autonomous administration on the international stage 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:01.520 and would legitimize the political philosophies behind what they're doing, 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:04.959 all of which Turkey deems to be a very serious 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:08.560 national security threat to its existence. I mean, imagine you 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:12.800 have a Kurdish woman judge questioning an ISIS member responsible 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:18.120 for potentially European and American casualties, certainly responsible for casualties 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:21.560 and all sorts of abuses across Iraq and Syria, about 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:24.720 the evidence that we have, that the international community has, 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:28.399 that North East Syria has, about how Turkey facilitated ISIS actions, 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:31.400 you know, with the YPG and the YPG there for security, 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.520 with international observers from the US and other coalition countries 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:38.720 facilitating providing legal and security support, that would absolutely destroy 0:22:38.800 --> 0:22:42.959 Turkey's narrative about what individuals and entities are terrorists and 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:47.240 which ones have actually contributed not only to the territorial 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:52.320 militarily defeat of ISIS, but to social and political and 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:55.000 governance projects that are able to prevent, you know, the 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:59.880 resurgence of the next ISIS. So, you know, this kind 0:22:59.880 --> 0:23:04.200 of fear of building political relationships with the Autonomous administration 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:09.080 with legitimate this fear of legitimizing the autonomous administration project 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:12.960 and helping it address security problems in a way that 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:16.200 would you know, both increase its standing and legitimacy locally 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:21.080 and internationally, and would show how the actions of states 0:23:21.119 --> 0:23:25.840 like Turkey contributed to prolonging and intensifying the civil war 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:30.000 in Syria. States simply don't want to do that yet. 0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:33.080 But you know, when we look at the long term 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:37.520 consequences of whether it's allowing Turkey to continue aggressive actions 0:23:37.520 --> 0:23:40.240 against North East Syria and more broadly, to pursue a 0:23:40.280 --> 0:23:44.080 military solution to its Kurdish conflict, whether it's allowing ISIS 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:47.400 atrocities to go unpunished, you know, leaving communities that were 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:51.639 impacted by ISIS to be essentially re traumatized and left 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:55.399 to live in difficult conditions, you know, not receiving justice, 0:23:56.000 --> 0:23:59.560 and allowing these ISIS members to continue to have the 0:23:59.680 --> 0:24:04.119 space to attempt to reconstitute their group and go back 0:24:04.200 --> 0:24:08.000 to the kind of atrocities they were committing and attacks 0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:11.120 they were carrying out worldwide in twenty fourteen twenty fifteen. 0:24:11.760 --> 0:24:14.119 In the long run, this sort of appeasement of Turkey 0:24:14.160 --> 0:24:16.879 over the issue of the Kurdish question and the role 0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:20.720 of the Autonomous Administration, it's going to create the start 0:24:20.800 --> 0:24:23.680 of the next endless war in the Middle East. And 0:24:24.240 --> 0:24:26.280 you know, if policymakers want to avoid that, they need 0:24:26.280 --> 0:24:29.280 to be addressing these problems from a pro peace perspective, 0:24:29.440 --> 0:24:32.560 from a perspective that brings about justice. You know, political 0:24:32.600 --> 0:24:35.960 solutions based on democracy, on gender equality, on the equality 0:24:36.000 --> 0:24:39.120 of all communities in the region, all of these values 0:24:39.119 --> 0:24:42.240 that while imperfectly the autonomous administration is really trying to 0:24:42.280 --> 0:24:42.680 fight for. 0:24:43.720 --> 0:24:45.879 Yeah, I think it's super important to point out that 0:24:46.080 --> 0:24:50.719 this isn't a necessarily a like Turkey versus Kurdish people 0:24:51.280 --> 0:24:54.040 like you dichotomy or like those aren't the only people 0:24:54.080 --> 0:24:56.639 impacted by this, right, Like the I think the majority 0:24:56.640 --> 0:25:00.159 of the ANS is not Kurdish people, right, And we 0:25:00.200 --> 0:25:03.280