French writer Patrice Franceschi attended the first session of the second day in the International Forum on Demographic Change and Ethnic Cleansing in Afrin and spoke about the Turkish invasion in Afrin.

Franceschi pointed out that the primary goal in Afrin and other parts of the world where similar incidents happen is to change the demographic structure and added that the Turkish state is taking steps and developing strategies to legitimize the invasion and avoid an intervention by global powers.

The French writer said, “The Turkish state wanted to change the demographic structure to intimidate the people of Afrin and to lower their morale, because they have failed to demoralize the fighters.”

Patrice Franceschi said the Turkish state has been carrying out massacres to leave no witnesses in certain areas: “They have created fear, and terrorized civilians. These practices go against human rights.”

Franceschi said the Turkish state uses the claim that they are fighting gang groups to avoid foreign intervention and legitimize their attacks and pointed out that the Ankara regime has guaranteed international silence through this method.

Franceschi said: “You can see that nobody from the outside world is reacting to the attacks. I can say this about the extent of their rule over the region: Turkey has remotely intimidated civilians so they won’t hold them to account, and attacked the civilians closeby using the gangs.”

The French writer said the Erdogan regime waged a “diplomatic war” before the invasion of Afrin and added: “The goal of these attacks was to weaken Rojava in the diplomatic arena, as that would have made the invasion easier.”

Franceschi added: “Turkey thus avoided being targeted by NATO as well, because Turkey is a NATO member.”

Franceschi said the Turkish state has long term plans that are not restricted to Afrin alone and warned: “There are lessons to be learned from Afrin for the protection of the region.”