Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made his comments during a speech to AK party members in Ankara on October 26. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Turkey is ready to launch a military operation in northeastern Syria to fight “terrorists” and bring “peace” to the region, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on October 5.
The Turkish President made his remarks at the 29th Consultation and Assessment meeting of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party, which was held in the town of Kizilcahaman near the country’s capital Ankara.
“We have completed our preparations and action plan; the necessary instructions were given … It is maybe today or tomorrow the time to clear the way for [our] peace efforts which is set and the process for them was started. We will carry out a ground and air operation … Our aim is, I underline it, to shower east of Euphrates with peace,” the Anadolu Agency quoted Erdogan as saying.
The northeastern region of Syria is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led group supported by the US.
Last August, Turkey and the US reached an agreement to establish what was called a “peace corridor” in northeastern Syria. Under the agreement, Turkish and US forces conducted land and air patrols in the region.
These very limited measures were criticized by Erdogan, who was not apparently satisfied with the agreement.
“We have been patient enough. Land patrols, air patrols [carried out with the U.S. for safe zone], we see that all were a tale,” the Turkish president said.
Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the SDF, responded to Erdogan’s threats warning Ankara from launching any military operation in northeastern Syria.
“SDF is committed to the security mechanism framework and has been taking necessary steps to preserve stability in the region. However, we will not hesitate to turn any unprovoked attack by Turkey into an all-out war on the entire border to DEFEND ourselves and our people,” Bali wrote on Twitter.
The Turkish President has been threatening to launch a military operation in northeastern Syria for more than a year now. However, the Turkish military and its Syrian proxies are yet to take any action, likely due to the presence of hundreds of U.S. troops in the region.
By launching such threats, Erdogan is likely attempting to pressure the US and its Kurdish allies in order to gain leverage in any new agreement on northeastern Syria.
This stupid arsehole has been barking for years now and done fuckall. Seriously, this guy is total nutter.
yeah and while he represents his country straight up other parties pretend to be something they’re not, like a troll out of tel aviv posing under e.g. zionism =evil tag and pretend to be seriously against israel while the object is really to discredit the other parties from the good side – like putin, like rouhani like nasrallah und zu weiter so israeli troll – stay quiet.
They told the same About Afrin and now is there much more violance, terror and deaths then before – who can believe to Turks in this at another parts of Syria??? I really dont know why SDF still believe in this – how much bribes must they leaders take from US which obviously support war conflicts around world
Its something incoinceivable for me….
How much sdf whatever you call them pay you for their propaganda? They are traitor bastards they join forces with Yankees and jew bags killing Syrian people
Sorry jihadi Mustafa…. Iam purely pro-goverment in this case
Iam agree they are pro-American traitors but still they are much better then your jihadi brotherhood
How can one be a traitor to a country that has a history of 71 years, as of 1948, independence, of betraying the kurds. This self proclaimed arab country has literally done nothing to generate any loyalty from kurds and to me it is even astonishing they say they want to remain within a changed Syria.
The name of the country already proclaims it is not a country for non arabs.
Our request were pretty simple, dude. We dont want pkk and it is affiliates at our border. Nothing to do with Kurds.okey?
By your brainless logic Turkey sending support for jihadi terrorists then we can call for Syrian troops in safe zone inside Turkey
That Erdogai operation have nothing to do with PKK – its all about stealing Syrian Soil as Israel did at golans and Turkanization of local population, okey? ….. ehm – I want to PKK out of Syrian soil too, but I really dont like to have there another jihadi Ibdlib, Afrin od Al-Bab zone. okey?
Who is Erdogan fighting and representing.Who benefits from his.interference in Syria affairs.
The Muslim Brotherhood.
LOL, this is just Erdogan’s death rattle, he knows if he attacks the SDF the US will respond with overwhelming force, the combined US/coalition air support and Kurdish ground forces would be more than capable of repelling any attack Erdogan could launch, the Turks might take a border town or 2 but they’d get bogged down straight away and wouldn’t be able to move after that.
And what would the SAA and ALF do if Erdogan invaded US held territory, just sit on their backsides and watch, or take advantage of the situation and launch their own operations while Erdogan was distracted.
With all the pressure Erdogan’s under now he may be becoming mentally unstable, and that will make it hard to predict anything he does, but who can ever predict what a madman’s going to do next anyway, he could even put a gun to his own head before it’s all finished, and hopefully he does. oops, I think that may have been politically incorrect,, that last statement is only applicable to insane murderers.
Though Turkish forces are concentrated north of the border, Turkish proxies are not, they are fighting amongst themselves, defending against HRE, preparing to attack HTS.
So if Turkey invades right now, they will have to do this mostly on their own. Are they ready for the huge losses of men and material they will suffer? Are they ready for the US backlash. Are they ready for advances over a hundred kms into hostile country? Imo doubtful.
Well, the first day has already passed.
The second day also