As the Australian Turkish Advocacy Alliance we welcome the news that Australian Government has agreed to take a further 12000 refugees from Syria and Iraq.
We understand that this number almost doubles the yearly refugee intake of Australia. However it is a very small number when compared with 4.1 million refugees registered with UNHCR from the Syrian conflict , 2 million of whom now reside in Turkey.
ATA Alliance would like to remind the Australian government that the “persecuted minorities” of the region also includes the Turkmens along with many other Muslim minorities in the region. Ultimately, anyone who does not accept the brutal ideology of ISIS are likely to be prosecuted whether they are Muslim or not.
Turkmen people in Northern Iraq and Syria have been suffering from persecution for many years, including under the totalitarian regime of Saddam Hussein, but their plight has not been well known around the world as foreign journalists have not focussed on their suffering.
ATA Alliance and its constituent associations offer full support to the Australian Government and relevant agencies for any help they might need for resettling the Syrian refugees.
ATA Alliance
