ZURICH: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan should be investigated and indicted for war crimes over his country’s military offensive in Syria, former prosecutor and UN investigator Carla del Ponte said in an interview published on Saturday.
Del Ponte, a former member of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria, said Turkey’s intervention had broken international law and had reignited the conflict in Syria.
Ankara says its incursion — launched after US troops withdrew from the Syrian-Turkish border area — solely targeted the Kurdish YPG militia, which it regards as terrorists linked to Kurdish insurgents operating in southeast Turkey.
“For Erdogan to be able to invade Syrian territory to destroy the Kurds is unbelievable,” said del Ponte, a former Swiss attorney general who prosecuted war crimes in Rwanda and former Yugoslavia.
“An investigation should be opened into him and he should be charged with war crimes. He should not be allowed to get away with this scot free,” she told the Swiss newspaper Schweiz am Wochenende in an interview.
Ankara halted its military offensive last week under a US-brokered cease-fire. Erdogan then negotiated an accord with Russian President Vladimir Putin whereby Syrian border guards and Russian military police began clearing the YPG from within 30 km (19 miles) of the Syrian-Turkish frontier.
From Tuesday Russian and Turkish forces will start to patrol a narrower, 10-km strip of land in northeast Syria where US troops had been deployed for years alongside their former Kurdish allies.
Turkey’s NATO allies, including the United States, have criticized its military incursion in northeast Syria, fearing it will undermine the fight against Daesh militants.
But del Ponte said European nations were reluctant to confront Turkey over its actions after Erdogan threatened to “open the gates” for refugees to head to Europe.
“Erdogan has the refugees as a bargaining chip,” she said.
Del Ponte joined the three-member Syria inquiry in September 2012, chronicling incidents such as chemical weapons attacks, a genocide against Iraq’s Yazidi population, siege tactics, and the bombing of aid convoys.
She quit in 2017, saying a lack of political backing from the UN Security Council made the job impossible.
Erdogan should be prosecuted over Syrian offensive: former UN investigator
Erdogan should be prosecuted over Syrian offensive: former UN investigator
- Former UN investigator Carla del Ponte: Turkey’s intervention had broken international law and had reignited the conflict in Syria
- Turkey’s NATO allies, including the United States, have criticized its military incursion in northeast Syria
Senior Hamas figure among 7 killed in Israeli airstrike
- Pair of Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza's Deir Al-Balah, killing a Hamas commander
- Boy, aged 16, among the dead
CAIRO: A senior figure in the armed wing of Hamas was among seven people killed on Thursday in a pair of Israeli airstrikes in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, a Hamas source said.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the incident. The Hamas source said one of the dead was Mohammed Al-Holy, a local commander in the group’s armed wing in Deir Al-Balah.
Hamas condemned the strikes on the Al-Holy family, in a statement that did not mention Mohammed or his role in the group. It accused Israel of violating the ceasefire deal in place since October, and attempting to reignite the conflict.
Health officials said the six other dead in the incident included a 16-year-old.
Israel and Hamas have traded blame for violations of the ceasefire and remain far apart from each other on key issues, despite the United States announcing the start of the agreement’s second phase on Wednesday.
More than 400 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers have been reported killed since the ceasefire took effect in October.
Israel has razed buildings and ordered residents out of more than half of Gaza where its troops remain. Nearly all of the territory’s more than 2 million people now live in makeshift homes or damaged buildings in a sliver of territory where Israeli troops have withdrawn and Hamas has reasserted control.
The United Nations children’s agency said on Tuesday that over 100 children have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire, including victims of drone and quadcopter attacks.
Israel launched its operations in Gaza in the wake of an attack by Hamas-led fighters in October 2023 which killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s assault has killed 71,000 people, according to health authorities in the strip, and left much of Gaza in ruins.
