In a statement FIOM said that "the bombing attack on the main cities on the Turkish-Syrian border that are already causing casualties and numerous injuries among the civilian population."

The statement added: "Behind the screen of the fight against terrorism, the Turkish government does not hide how its real goal is to strongly erase or reduce the areas of self-government that Kurdish forces have built in the north-east of Syria after facing and defeating Daesh mercenaries on the field, allowing the international alliance to declare the Islamic state defeated."

The statement continued: "The political experience realized in the region of Rojava is an example of democratic self-government and coexistence between different populations and cultures that in fact expresses a visible and concrete alternative to the authoritarian fundamentalism of the Islamic state, and that is why it is a value and a symbol for all those in the world who are fighting to affirm the principles of democracy and respect for human rights, starting from the rights and role of women, who are the undisputed protagonists of this political experience as they were in the war against Daesh."

The Turkish aggression, said FIOM, "appears as an attempt to carry out an ethnic cleansing of that region to the detriment mainly of the Kurdish population but not only. The international community must absolutely prevent it, not only to avoid a new humanitarian catastrophe in a region already severely proved by long years of war, but also so as not to give new strength to the forces of Daesh and to make the region fall again into a conflict destined to widen and make its effects felt even in Europe with the Turkish government using, as a weapon of blackmail, refugees."

FIOM reiterated that it "shares the proposal that Italy and other EU countries have made to suspend arms sales to Turkey if military operations are not interrupted and the Turkish army does not retreat within its borders."

Together with CGIL, Arci, Anpi, Legambiente, FIOM called on the Italian Government and the European Institutions "to promote an urgent initiative to stop the Turkish military aggression and guarantee the safety and security of the population in the north east of Syria." 

FIOM also "declares its full commitment to make the voice of the workers, of the Italian and European civil society to the side of the affected populations and to support the Kurdish forces that defend the autonomy and the democratic experience of Rojava."