A civil peace initiative has launched a public statement urging the Turkish government to reverse its Syria policy and halt support for Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), warning that continued backing of the group will deepen regional instability, undermine democracy, and derail prospects for peace at home.
The Social Initiative for Peace (Barış için Toplumsal Girişim) has issued a public statement urging the Turkish government to reconsider its Syria policy and end support for Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), warning that continued backing of the group will deepen regional instability, undermine democracy, and jeopardise prospects for peace at home.
The text, opened for individual signatures by the Social Initiative for Peace (Barış için Toplumsal Girişim), will remain open until Monday, 26 January at 17:00. Supporters are invited to submit their names via email.
In a strongly worded appeal, the initiative declares: “Do not attack Rojava. Do not touch our Kurdish brothers and sisters. Do not make us neighbours with HTS.” The statement frames peace not only as the absence of war, but as a process of collective healing and reconciliation.
Signatories argue that after more than four decades of conflict, Turkey is once again being pushed into “darkness and deadlock” just as hopes for peace have begun to re-emerge. They warn that support for HTS, described in the text as Salafi, jihadist, anti-women and hostile to secular life, will expose Turkey to heavier security risks and draw the country further into a regional war. The statement also criticises what it calls the joint destabilisation of the Middle East alongside the United States and Israel, and the erosion of democracy and secularism across the region.
The initiative highlights the threat posed to Syria’s social diversity, including Circassians, Turkmens, Arabs, Armenians and Christians, arguing that current policies amount to complicity in the destruction of Syria’s pluralistic fabric.
Turning to the domestic implications, the text warns that this approach makes a democratic resolution of Turkey’s Kurdish and Alevi questions impossible, while locking the country into a cycle of war and conflict that drains public resources and deepens the economic crisis.
The statement stresses that the Syrian Kurds, who have exercised autonomy for 13 years, have not posed a security threat to Turkey. Efforts to portray them as enemies or as a “national survival problem,” it argues, reflect a persistent refusal to recognise Kurds as equal citizens, both domestically and internationally. It also recalls that the autonomous administration in northern Syria played a decisive role in liberating the region from ISIS control.
Citing the Suruç and 10 October attacks, the initiative urges the public not to forget the human cost of ISIS violence in Turkey and the deep traumas it left behind. “Every wrong decision triggers historical traumas,” the text states, calling for an end to hate speech and manipulative narratives that, it says, prevent a shared future from being built.
The appeal asks how peace can be achieved in Turkey while relatives of Kurdish citizens are being killed in Syria. It defines peace as “healing together,” insisting that reconciliation cannot be built on broken hearts, wounded dignity and imposed injustices.
The initiative also invokes shared cultural references and calls for renewed solidarity between Kurds and Turks, arguing that the distance between “Artık Yeter” (Enough is enough) and “Edi Bese” is now very small.
The statement concludes by demanding a rapid shift towards a pluralistic, dialogue-based and peaceful policy in Syria. It calls for the domestic peace process to be grounded in democracy, the rule of law, transparency and universal rights, rather than securitisation and authoritarian measures. Equal citizenship, the right to live in one’s mother tongue, and local democracy are presented as the foundations of lasting peace.
The text was dated 23 January 2026 and signed by a group of prominent intellectuals, writers, academics and human rights advocates, including Akın Birdal, Ayşegül Devecioğlu, Bahadır Altan, Cengiz Arın, Erdoğan Aydın, Esra Mungan, Fatma Gök, Filiz Kerestecioğlu, Gençay Gürsoy, Gürhan Ertür, Hacer Ansal, Levent Köker, Necmiye Alpay, Nesrin Nas, Rıza Türmen, Onur Hamzaoğlu, Orhan Silier, Oya Baydar, Oya Ersoy and Yakın Ertürk.
The organisers have opened the appeal for public signatures, calling on supporters to submit their names by the stated deadline to aysegul.devecioglu@gmail.com or bahadiraltan@yahoo.com in support of a shared, democratic and rights-based vision of peace.