Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses the crowd to mark July 15 defeated coup’s 2nd anniversary in Istanbul, Turkey on July 15, 2018 ( Berk Özkan – Anadolu Agency )
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to clear his country’s border with Syria from “terrorists,” starting from the northern city of Manbij.
“Turkey will drive YPG [People’s Protection Units], PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] and Daesh [ISIS] terrorists out of its southern border by starting from Syria’s Manbij. Our security forces will give terrorists lessons throughout our southern border,” Erdogan said at a campaign rally in Iskenderun district of southern Hatay province on March 10.
Erdogan also stressed that the Turkish military should establish a safe zone in northeastern Syria and said that Turkey will allow all Syrian refugees to settle there.
During his speech, the Turkish president described the military operation against Kurdish forces in the Syrian Kurdish area of Afrin as a success. The operation, that was launched in early 2018, displaced more than 100,000 Syrian Kurds. Dozens others were killed in Turkey’s airstrikes.
According to Ankara, the PKK and the YPG are both terrorist groups. This led to notable tenions with Washington, whose forces are actively working with the YPG in northeastern Syria.
Last month, the U.S. confirmed that it will keep 200 soldiers in Syria after the previously announced withdrawal. These soldiers, along with other Western forces, will establish a safe zone east of the Euphrates River in northern Syria.
Turkey didn’t agree with the U.S. plan. It believes that any safe zone along its border should be under the control of its army only – a move that Kurdish forces will not likely accept.
As the tension between Ankara and Washington over this issue heats up, Turkish media began to exaggerate the threat from Kurdish forces in Syria to Turkey’s national security. The Anadolu Agency claimed in a recent report that the Turkish military foiled 12 drone attacks from the Kurdish-held areas in northern Syria over the last two weeks.
Despite Turkey’s effort to expand its influence in northeastern Syria, the U.S. appears to be willing to defend its Kurdish allies, at least as for now.
Syrian national security is every minute under threat from USA, Turkey, NATO terrorism.
Nice if Erdogan finally see, that moving all soldiers 30 km behind the border will be the best option for progress in that region.
good and while you’re at it, erdo,, why don’t you clear out the kurds from the med to the iraqi border and force them back into a tenancy, with turkey, syria, iraq and iran as landlords and kick the morons from washington dc all the way back to where they come from. no two things about it. slow and easy will do the trick! and then you and assadcan clean out the thieving and murdering squatters on palestinian land – can’t go wrong.
Absolutely… Especially in Syria the Kurds cannot be allowed to establish themselves as an independent entity within Syria. Not so long ago they were waving Israeli & American flags. That says it all about their allegiances & intentions. Once Daesh and other Proxy forces are completely obliterated. Assad & Erdo should go back on the drawing board and discuss Kurd removal.
well, basically two things the middle east doesn’t need. one is the kurds but they are difficult to do anything about except allowing them to continue as tenants along the borders (no military) and then there is the squatters on palestinian land. those murderers and thieves and
concentration camp gaza organizers have no right to remain in the middle east and once the situation is syria is settled, the borders working, it’s time to clean the nest of those murderers, thieves etc once and for all. iran, syria, turkey , saudi, hezbollah iraq und zu weiter can kick the squatters to kingdom come and that is a must.
Erdogan has to understand that the only way to clear this kurdish terrorism is by working with President Assad and recognizing the sovereignty of Syria. He’s gonna lose the most if the (((kurds))) and their feminist allies steal more Syrian land.
As long as AKPs provokes terrorrisme, some Kurds will give back. As lonmg as You dont move the reasons, You are totally wrong the last 100 years.
Only a Majority in the Turkish PM and Presidensy can change that.
Hard to see those SDFs has stolen, what they poses for the moment. Nooned xould see it was a great mistake diving Aleppo, Raqqa, Diabykir a.s.o. in 1923.
The people living there never was asked if they would join 4 new artificial countries based on Neocolonialism and even forced to be like some far away constructed as bad nationalisme of the worst kind.
And partly apart the Syrians now and then, there has been understandable troubles about i ever since. But as in the holy Choran, Your fanatics insist in no change.
Kurds are a made up ethnicity, theyre just iranians or turks pretending theyre something else. Either they respect Arab land and speak Arabic, or they can leave Syria and Iraq.
You can say the same for Turks being 80% Europeans and Indoeuropeans.
They were there long time before You and arabs.
Syria nnever was a country but a region as well.
The country Syria was moved north by taking half of the Aleppo and Raqqa provinces. It also wasnt Tripolis emeirate as well. Syria had no harbours.
So if You real syrians in that way, then go home to Syria and let those Kurds, Turks and others alone.
Nothing new from the 1/8 dark moon given 1 star by Michelin haters.
Great leader god bless you
If so, there must be many Gods. Baalbeck is in Your Region as well.
Great leader
Do you know that Turkey is a NATO member ? He is not a leader, he just follows orders.
I never said his NATO leader . he is Republic of Turkey leader. nothing more . none of the leaders run there country, they are just a puppets. deep state run the country
Fruits/Karma for Kurds of CENCOM collaboration seem to be virtually boundless..a cornucopia of benefits!
Erdogan keeps repeating himself.
All leaders are same but when the time is right they do what they have to do no worries……
that chickenshiet will never invade..he is just like a barking dog…only blahblahblah and 0 action. he cant afford the looses he will suffer
RE tikasi still hurts ha? you just like mosquitoes trying to make nose but no 1 can hear you idiot
lol cry moar erdogans girl
Ask your m….. Ma
Here comes the devil again with his big knife to stab Putin in the back.
Erdogan and Trump have one thing in common that makes them completely different to all the other players meddling in Syria, they always tell us what they’re about to do, or at least they tell us what they want to do, even they don’t always succeed, but they at least always try to put their money where their mouths are.
I may despise Erdogan, but I always listen to what he says to the Turkish people/voters/supporters, he never seems to lie to them, and what he tells them he’s about to do, he always does.
So just like all the other invasions of Syria he’s forewarned us of in the past, he’s again telling us all there’ll still be one more, and I believe him, but I also believe Trump when he says he won’t allow that to happen, so it should be an interesting invasion when it does happen.
Erdogan against the rest of the world in Syria, that won’t last too long, Erdogan will be biting off more than he can chew if he goes ahead with this new invasion he’s promising, and also ending his political career at the same time I think.
Both Israel and the Saudis have been spending huge sums of money to help get rid of Erdogan, their dark secretive diplomatic machinations have been directed at him for one outcome alone, his final demise, and they don’t care how it’s done. The media doesn’t seem to think the diplomatic problems both the Saudis and the Israelis are having with Erdogan are related in any way to what’s happening in Syria, but in reality it’s become the primary concern for both parties now, though the Israelis have already had a decades worth of problems from Erdogan. They both want the Turks out of Syria for slightly different reasons, and they’re both now cooperating together to do exactly that, and also with the complete but deniable approval of Trump, and possibly even some untraceable support from him as well.
Erdogan has to go, if the US, Saudis, and Israelis can’t ruin him politically in Turkey before another invasion, they’ll just get rid of him during the invasion, by smashing his invasion force to pieces, and then sending him home to face some very unhappy Turkish voters, 40% of whom would already like to lock him up for life or even worse.
Israel wants Iran out of Syria, and the US want to keep Israel happy, the US also wants a new nuclear deal with Iran, but the Iranians won’t leave Syria until the Turks leave first, or cut a new nuclear deal with the US/Israel, until the US sanctions are lifted, so until the Turks leave Syria, none of those things can happen.
And even though all the other parties have bent over backwards to accommodate Erdogan and all his other demands, the one thing they don’t want him to have is the one thing he really wants, a 30 km buffer all along the Syrian side of the border, that he believes will help end PKK and YPG incursions into Turkey from Syria, and that he can also conveniently rehouse all his unwanted Syrian refugees in.
To my mind it’s now Erdogan against the rest of the world when it come to Syrian diplomacy, everyone else is saying “Assad can stay in power”, but Erdogan alone is still saying “Assad has to go”, is he tough enough to take on everyone else and win, I don’t think so.
If he isn’t driven from power before another invasion of Syria, he’ll lose power when he starts having too many Turkish soldiers coming home in body bags, then the 40% of the Turkish voters who despise Erdogan and want to see him either out of office or dead, start to grow in numbers and eventually hit the 55% mark, Erdogan is going to go, one way or the other.
I’ll keep trusting Erdogan’s promises right up until the moment he starts losing the new war he’s promising to start, but then I’ll start to disbelieve him, I’ll know he won’t be able to tell anyone the truth when that finally happens, least of all the Turkish voters that support him, he’ll have to lie between his teeth to hold onto their support when he starts losing.
Erdogan always tells the truth when he’s talking to his supporters, but always lies to the people he makes deals with, every single time he makes a deal, and then he either goes back on the deal he’s made, or alters it to his own benefit without the other parties consent, so at least he’s always sort of predictable, but when he starts losing, he may not be.