Asked whether he planned to discuss the Kurdish-led border force with U.S. President Donald Trump, Erdogan said he had no plans to call the U.S. leader.
Advertisement
The Pentagon, meanwhile, sought to downplay training of Kurdish forces there, something that has enraged Ankara.
But Erdogan has stepped up the warnings in recent days as Turkish media said dozens of military vehicles were being deployed to the border area.
Turkey began its first wave of artillery fire targeting Kurdish fighters in Afrin, Syria on Tuesday night, said an Al Arabiya reporter.
Alluding to “a possible military operation into” Kurdish-controlled northern Syria, the foreign minister pointed out that Turkey will continue to fight against the us -allied People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ).
The PKK is considered a terrorist group by the European Union, Turkey and the United States.
That force will include 15,000 SDF veterans of the war against IS, with another 15,000 more to be recruited and trained. But it’s no longer the nerve center for the Islamic State’s mission of carnage.
An estimated 8,000-10,000 YPG soldiers are operating in the Afrin region in Syria’s Aleppo province, which borders Turkey’s Hatay and Kilis areas.
Qasemi urged all USA forces to leave Syria immediately. “The training is created to enhance security for displaced persons returning to their devastated communities”, Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon said in a written statement. “It is also essential so that IS can not reemerge in liberated and ungoverned areas”, the Pentagon said.
On Sunday, Washington confirmed it will help the SDF create a new 30,000 “border security force” over the next several years to police those borders – and also the “internal” border between Kurdish-controlled Syria and the rest of the country.
On Monday, Erdogan vowed to crush the border force and called on North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to take a stand against the United States, a fellow ally.
“The Assad regime clearly looks to Russian Federation as a guarantor of its security”, Tillerson said. It called on the U.S.to reclaim all arms supplied to Syrian Kurdish fighters. It said the force could lead to the splitting up of Syria.
“It was emphasised that we are ready, immediately and decisively, to take the steps needed to eliminate the threats… coming from the west of Syria”, it added. “It could open the door to the future partition of Syria”.
The Kurds always get betrayed because what they really want is an independent Kurdistan including all 20 million Kurds.
From Ankara’s viewpoint, Afrin is a point of leverage over the Syrian Kurds because it is noncontiguous to areas under their control in the northeast.
French special forces and the country’s air force have operated in Iraq and Syria as part of the US -led coalition to defeat ISIS.
“But let us be clear: the United States will maintain a military presence in Syria, focused on ensuring ISIS can not re-emerge”, while acknowledging many Americans’ skepticism of military involvement in conflicts overseas, Tillerson said.
The FSA also says that Iranian Shi’ite militia fighting in Syria have stoked wider sectarian conflict in which mainly Sunni Muslims have been driven out of former opposition strongholds.
A USA disengagement from Syria would provide Iran with an opportunity to reinforce its position in Syria, Tillerson said. “Turkey will not dare challenge Russia’s resolve to maintain Syria’s sovereignty over the entire Syrian geography”. It would seem now that the United States would not intervene on behalf of the YPG in the Afrin region, along the southern border of Turkey.
Advertisement
The captives had been held by rebels for between eight months and three years, Reuters said, citing SANA news agency.
