Turkey and its Syrian extremist allies invaded northern Syria more than two weeks ago, ostensibly in retaliation for the latest Isis atrocity – although the militants have offered far less resistance to Ankara’s forces than to the Syrian army or the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.
Advertisement
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that Kurdish militants had been trying to step up their attacks since a failed coup attempt in July and that they had a clear aim of disrupting Turkey’s military operations in Syria.
Erdogan said in a televised message marking the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha that Turkey has a “primary duty” to its people to destroy IS and prevent it from staging attacks in Turkey. It has since suspended tens of thousands of people from government jobs over supposed links to terrorist organizations.
This has created strains with Turkey’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally, the United States, which works with the YPG on the ground in the fight against ISIS.
“Like the Gulen movement, the PKK can not possibly withstand the power of the people and the strength of the state”, Erdogan said in a video statement.
A 10-day truce is set to start in Syria on Monday, according to an agreement announced early Saturday by the United States and Russian Federation.
Turkey appointed new administrators in the 24 Kurdish-run municipalities on Sunday, triggering pockets of protest in parts of the largely-Kurdish southeast.
“Being an elected official isn’t a license to commit crimes”, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag wrote on Twitter. “If [they] finance terrorism by transferring public funds allocated to them to serve the people, and allow the use of municipal vehicles, equipment and capabilities in terrorist activities, they lose their democratic legitimacy”. “We hope that any appointment of trustees will be temporary and that local citizens will soon be permitted to choose new local officials in accordance with Turkish law”. The main pro-Kurdish opposition party called it an “administrative coup”.
Advertisement
“This unlawful and arbitrary action will only deepen existing problems in Kurdish towns and cause the Kurdish issue to be even more unsolvable”, the party said in a statement.
