Bruno Le Clainche, the brother of a French man who was killed in northern Syria in 2018 while fighting against the Islamic State (ISIS) told Medya News that his sibling died for a good cause.

Oliver Francois joined the Kurdish groups in North Syria that were leading the struggle against ISIS in 2017 and was killed in Afrin, during Turkey’s military incursion into the city.

Turkey claims the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the People’s Defence Units (YPG) are linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and sees their control in territories in North Syria as a threat to its national security.

Bruno Le Clainche visited Kurdish-populated North Syria and North Iraq this week as a part of the European Parliament’s Kurdish Friendship Group.

“I could not go to the land where my brother died because it is under the occupation of Turkey. But it’s a very strong feeling,” Le Clainche said, referring to Afrin, which has been controlled by the Turkish military and Turkey-affiliated Syrian rebels.

Emphasising that the struggle to prevent Turkey’s military interventions into Kurdish-controlled territories in northeast Syria, where the Autonomous Administration of North-East Syria (AANES) has been trying to create a society based on equality and women’s rights, is very important for him, Le Clainche said, “I wouldn’t want that my brother died for nothing.”

Le Clainche, who is an assistant to MEP Francois Alfonsi, added that being in North Syria had a very strong impact on him.

Given the conditions of people living in areas in the Middle East that are not Kurdish controlled, Le Clainche believes his brother died for a good cause.

“Especially in Turkey,” he said, pointing out Turkey’s unstable efforts to become more European. “So, they try sometimes for being more democratic, but they try that on one way and quite after that, they strongly go the opposite way,” he said.

“So, it was for a good cause,” he said. “It is a good cause.”