[ad_1]
Turkey will quickly launch a brand new army operation in northern Syria, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan mentioned on Monday. Although he didn’t present any specifics, the incursion is prone to goal areas held by US-backed Kurdish militias, which Turkey has already performed on three events since 2016.
“We are going to quickly take new steps relating to the unfinished parts of the venture we began on the 30-km deep protected zone we established alongside our southern border,” Erdogan mentioned after a cupboard assembly, in line with AP.
“The principle goal of those operations might be areas that are facilities of assaults to our nation and protected zones,” he added, in line with Reuters. Operations will start as soon as Turkey’s army, intelligence and safety forces full their preparations, Erdogan mentioned with out elaborating additional.
Ankara has despatched troops into Syria thrice already, beginning with Operation Euphrates Defend in 2016. The newest incursion, 2019’s Operation Peace Spring, was met with US sanctions and a disagreement between Erdogan and French President Emmanuel Macron. Turkey presently controls parts of Syria’s Aleppo, Raqqa and Hasakah governorates, along with supporting militants in Idlib.
Final month, Turkey additionally despatched troops into Iraq, concentrating on Kurdish militias within the northern areas of Metina, Zap, and Avasin-Basyan in what it referred to as Operation Claw-Lock. Baghdad condemned the operation as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, however has been unable to do something about it.
Turkey has accused the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG of hyperlinks to the Kurdistan Staff’ Get together (PKK), which Ankara has designated as a terrorist group. Since 2015, the US has used YPG as the idea of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a proxy militia it armed and provides to combat towards Islamic State (IS, previously ISIS) terrorists – and deny the liberated territory to the federal government in Damascus, which Washington seeks to overthrow.
Backed by as many as 2,000 US troops, the SDF presently holds the northeastern portion of Syria, together with most of its oil wells and arable land.
Erdogan has not too long ago voiced objections to Finland and Sweden becoming a member of NATO, as a result of reality the 2 Scandinavian governments have granted political asylum to a variety of Kurdish activists that Turkey considers terrorists.
[ad_2]
Source link