LONDON: British human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy has said Turkey should face charges before the International Court of Justice for its involvement in acts of genocide against the Yazidi people.
Kennedy also supported investigations against Syria and Iraq for failing to prevent the killings.
The report, compiled by a group of leading human rights lawyers, attempts to highlight the binding responsibility of states to prevent genocide on their territories, even if it is perpetrated by a third party such as extremist organizations.
Lawyers known as the Yazidi Justice Committee (YJC) insist that states are held accountable under the Genocide Convention for preventing genocide.
YJC president Sir Geoffrey Nice QC described the genocide of the Yazidi people as “madness over evil”.
“The arrangements could have saved the Yazidis part of their past and part of their past destruction,” he said.
Since 2013, there have been attempted genocide against Yazidis, a religious minority in Iraq and Syria. After a three-year investigation into the conduct of 13 countries, the 278-page report concluded that three of them failed in their duty to take appropriate steps to prevent the genocide.
With regard to Turkey, the YJC accused its leaders of involvement in the massacres, claiming that the country failed to police its borders to stop the free flow of extremist fighters, including a significant number of Turkish citizens. Turkish officials have dismissed the criticisms as baseless.
The YJC also claimed that since April 2014, Turkish authorities turned a blind eye to the sale, relocation and enslavement of Yazidi women and children, and assisted in training fighters affiliated with extremist organizations to fight their Kurdish enemies in Syria. , thus strengthened the perpetrators of the genocide.
“The Turkish authorities were aware and/or deliberately did not have evidence that these individuals would use this training to commit prohibited acts against the Yazidis,” the report said.
Although the report acknowledged that Iraq had called on the United Nations to recognize the atrocities committed in 2014, it accused the Iraqi government of failing to coordinate with the Kurdish authorities or take steps to secure the Yazidis.
Reportedly, the Syrian government also failed to prevent the transfer and detention of slave Yazidis in its territory.
Turkey’s ambassador to the UK, Emit Yalsin, called the criticisms baseless and unfair.
“Since the early years of the conflict in Syria, Turkey has played an important role in protecting Syrian civilians and minorities, including Yazidis, in the region against attacks and violations by terrorist groups,” Yalkin said.
He also said: “Turkey not only opened its doors and became a safe haven for millions of Syrians and Yazidis, but provided security to the people of the region through three counter-terrorism operations in Syria. Today the Yazidis live in those areas. live peacefully under the control of legitimate Syrian opposition in northwestern Syria.
“In addition, many Yazidi families who took refuge in north-west Syria last year tried to return to their homes in the north-east of Syria but [were] Prevented from doing so by PKK/YPG [the initials of the Kurdish groups in Turkey and Syria],
Kennedy said “an ocean of impunity exists in relation to the Yazidi genocide”, noting that extremist groups as non-state actors cannot be prosecuted under international law.
Kennedy said that meanwhile, the state “failed in its duty to fulfill its responsibilities to prevent genocide for many inhumane reasons”. He wrote that if they are not held accountable, the promise of ‘never again’ becomes hollow.