One goal of the Turkish incursion into Syria was apparently preventing the Kurdish forces from further advancing.
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The cross-border operation in Syria proves that the Turkish military has maintained its might despite the July 15 coup attempt, Turkey’s top general said Monday. The Turkish army on Wednesday launched the two-pronged cross border offensive against Islamic State jihadists but also Syrian Kurdish militia detested by Ankara, sending in dozens of tanks and hundreds of troops.
Turkey-backed forces pushed deeper into northern Syria on Monday, drawing a rebuke from North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally the United States, which said it was concerned the battle for territory had shifted away from targeting Islamic State.
As for the United States, its motive for supporting the Turkish offensive is its desire to escalate the war in Syria and create the conditions for the overthrow of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. Turkey denied any civilians had been hit.
The increased tensions between the Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon-backed Syrian rebels and Kurdish forces threaten to take resources and attention away from the campaign against the Islamic State.
“We have reiterated our view that the YPG must cross back to the eastern side of the Euphrates and understand that has largely occurred”, the Pentagon spokesman added.
“These are areas that Turkey has asked the YPG to pull out of”.
The fresh fighting suggested that Turkey and its Syrian proxies are increasingly focused on stopping Kurdish forces from gaining more territory in northern Syria, particularly along Turkey’s border, potentially signalling a widening of the conflict. But Turkey sees them as an arm of the Kurdish terrorist group, the PKK, and has attacked YPG units occupying a Syrian town.
Turkey can not remain indifferent in the issue of its own security, Kurtulmus added.
“We declare the withdrawal of our forces to south, to the Sajour River, to preserve the lives of civilians and so that they (Turks and their allies) don’t have any justification to continue shelling civilians”, the council’s statement read. He pointedly added, less than 48 hours after the initiation of the Turkish invasion, “We understand the sensitivities of our friends in Turkey with respect to this”.
The sharp rhetoric – and the continued fighting – reflects the complicated and conflicting interests at stake in northern Syria after Turkish tanks rolled across the border August 24 with the dual aim of containing the IS group and Kurdish forces.
Ankara said it killed 25 Kurdish “terrorists” in strikes on YPG positions on Sunday, a day after a Turkish soldier died in a rocket attack. Hurriyet said that the Turkish armed forces had been given an order to “strike immediately” should the YPG be seen to make any move towards Jarabulus.
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Brett McGurk, America’s special envoy to the fight against so-called Islamic State (IS), is no dummy so we will have to accept that the USA is pretending to be shocked at what should have been blindingly obvious to anyone in the region.
