Margaret Owen says the UK is complicit in Erdoğan’s offensive into north-eastern Syria and as guilty as Trump in allowing this invasion, Andy Brown suggests kicking Turkey out of Nato, Anthony Bradley asks what can be done to help the victims. Plus letters from David Bricknell and Sibyl Grundberg

This betrayal of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) is sickening (Turkey launches Syria strikes as Trump scorns America’s Kurdish allies, 10 October).

It is they who have been fighting Isis as the most reliable local forces on the ground, who liberated Kobane and Raqqa, who host the many refugees of all ethnicities and religions in their autonomous administration, Rojava, and hold many Isis members captive.

For decades they have been the victims of the Assad regime and now they are targeted by Turkey. Turkey unlawfully invaded Syria using its Nato membership, not to fight Isis but to destroy the Kurds.

The UK sells arms to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and is therefore complicit in his war crimes, and as guilty as Trump in allowing this invasion.

I too have spent time with the YPG and YPJ and would gladly be with them now if it were possible.

Margaret Owen

Patron of Peace in Kurdistan; director of Widows for Peace through Democracy

• In 1999 Nato intervened in Kosovo to prevent ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Albanian minority, but today it stands by while one of its own members (Turkey) embarks on a similar policy towards the Kurds in northern Syria. Whatever the geopolitical considerations, it is time to kick Turkey out of Nato. Failure to do so will compromise public support for the institution.

Andy Brown

Derby, Derbyshire

• Within a few hours of reading Jonathan Freedland’s penetrating critique of Trump’s latest diplomatic tragedy (Trump’s deal with Turkey will have lethal consequences, 12 October), we saw on our television screens the overwhelmingly moving pictures of Kurdish children who are orphans of war and whose future is now cast into a new maelstrom of uncertainty. What can we and our country do to help these innocent victims of Trump’s immorality?

Anthony Bradley

Cumnor, Oxfordshire

• Your editorial on Syria (14 October) stopped me in my tracks when it mentioned that, when asked about the potential threat posed by Isis-related prisoners, Donald Trump shrugged and said: “They’re going to be escaping to Europe.” We have been used to looking to the east for our threats but maybe now we should be consciously looking to the west also.

David Bricknell

Plymouth

• One rarely celebrated aspect of the historic choice Britain is on the verge of making is the steadfast loyalty shown by the EU to one of its less powerful member states, Ireland. The US’s shocking abandonment of its Kurdish allies in Syria makes a chilling contrast. Is this really to be our most reliable partner, going forth into a post-Brexit world?

Sibyl Grundberg

London

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