Marcello Mollica - Syrian Armenians and the Turkish Factor: Kessab, Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor in the Syrian War

Half of humanity lives in towns and cities and that proportion is expected to increase in the coming decades. Society, both Western and non-Western, is fast becoming urban and mega-urban as existing cities and a growing number of smaller towns are set on a path of demographic and spatial expansion. Given the disciplinary commitment to an empirically-based analysis, anthropology has a unique contribution to make to our understanding of our evolving urban world. It is in such a belief that we have established the Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology series. In the awareness of the unique contribution that ethnography offers for a better theoretical and practical grasp of our rapidly changing and increasingly complex cities, the series will seek high-quality contributions from anthropologists and other social scientists, such as geographers, political scientists, sociologists and others, engaged in empirical research in diverse ethnographic settings. Proposed topics should set the agenda concerning new debates and chart new theoretical directions, encouraging reflection on the significance of the anthropological paradigm in urban research and its centrality to mainstream academic debates and to society more broadly. The series aims to promote critical scholarship in international anthropology. Volumes published in the series should address theoretical and methodological issues, showing the relevance of ethnographic research in understanding the socio-cultural, demographic, economic and geo-political changes of contemporary society.

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The ongoing Syrian War is one of the most important challenges the world has faced in the last ten years. Its impact goes well beyond the Middle East for the trajectories of its various spill-overs, and migration waves have destabilized not just neighbouring countries but also political relations between Middle Eastern and European countries and World Powers. This book aims to provide a different understanding and reading of contemporary events, and their roots, in the Arab Republic of Syria. It does so by reading them through the eyes of a Syrian ethno-religious minority, the Syrian Armenian community, which is a recognized ethno-religious group with religious, confessional (there are three denominations: Apostolic, Catholic and Protestant ), cultural and educational rights. Although the Armenians have inhabited Syria since ancient times, the present community was formed in 1915, after the [Mets Yeghern, Great (Evil) Crime], a term used by Armenians to refer to the Armenian Genocide.

According to data from different sources, in 2003 there were between 65,000 and 90,000 Armenians in Syria (Ayvazyan ).

The direct involvement of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF ) and the Turkoman militia in the Syrian conflict played a major role in Syrian Armenians war narratives and its manifestations both in Syria and in the Republic of Armenia. This process, in turn, brought about interconnections between identity, migration and war (Hakobyan ).

Since 2000, relations between Syria and Turkey had started to improve, but deteriorated with the start of the Syrian War. The Turkish government , not only supported the Syrian Opposition including both the Free Syrian Army (FSA ) and Salafi Jihadi groups but hosted their headquarters, too. Turkey became a main actor in the Syrian War, especially in the north of the country. The TAF (and factions supported by them) launched three distinct military operations in northwestern Syria. First, the Operation Euphrates Shield (August 2016March 2017), which led to the Turkish occupation of part of northwestern Syria, between the Euphrates and the opposition-Islamist held sector of Azaz . The targets were the Islamic State (IS ) and the (mostly Kurdish) Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which had their headquarters in the not far town of Manbij . Second, Operation Olive Branch (January 2018), which led to the occupation of Afrin Canton. The target was the expulsion of Kurdish armed groups from the area; specifically, the Peoples Protection Units (YPG ) and Womens Protection Units (YPJ ). Third, the Operation Peace Spring (started on 9 October 2019), which aimed to expel the SDF from the border region and create a 30 km-deep safe zone in northern Syria. These three Operations have been portrayed as a way to relocate 3.6 million Syrian refugees presently hosted in Turkey (according to UNHCR data of May ) and resettle them in northern Syria .