Turkey has been conducting Operation Euphrates Shield since Wednesday after its troops entered the borderline territory in the north of Syria with the focus on retaking Jarablus from the Islamic State (IS, ISIS/ISIL) terrorists, which has been occupying it since July 2013.
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Following heavy bombardment of Jarabulus (a total of 63 targets were fired at 224 times in the first hours) and a series of air strikes involving aircraft from the US -led worldwide coalition, Syrian Free Army (FSA) troops were able to enter the city and take it under control in a matter of hours.
Turkey views the PKK, listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, as closely linked to the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.
Syrian rebel and Turkish forces pressed on past Jarablus on Thursday in attempt to clear the border area of any ISIL presence. Earlier, Washington assured Ankara that the US-backed Kurdish formations have been pulling out forces from the area to the east of the Euphrates River as demanded by Turkey.
It is one of the most powerful militias in Syria and regarded as the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed alliance formed last October to fight the Jihadist group.
The Turkish operation was approved by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who arrived on a visit to Ankara, while the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed deep concern. “The only ally we have in the region is Turkey”, Mustafa said, noting that Turkmens have always taken refuge in Turkey when in trouble.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu agency, reporting from Jarablus, said the Syrian opposition forces were working to secure the town to allow its resident’s to return, including defusing explosives inside the town or on roads leading to it. Estimates put the town’s population at 25,000.
A Reuters witness saw unidentified warplanes flying over the border region into Syria from Turkey early on Saturday morning, followed by the sound of explosions. “We, as a faction of the Syrian Democratic Forces, are waiting for the general command of the SDF to give orders to enter the city”. We are also defending Syria’s territorial integrity. “They can not, will not, under any circumstance get American support if they do not keep that commitment”, Biden said.
It comes at a testing time for Turkish-US relations.
The immediate target was Isis, but a more important Turkish objective is to strike at the political and military power of the Syrian Kurds who are already in control of much of the territory south of the Syrian-Turkish frontier.
As Mr Kerry and Mr Lavrov meet in Geneva, the warring parties in Syria wonder what agreements were reached behind their backs about Turkish intervention and other matters.
Syrian rebels, who this week seized a strategic town from Islamic State, aim to move westward in the next phase of their Turkey-backed operation, an advance that could take weeks or months to complete, a rebel commander said. “We will not withdraw from west of the Euphrates”, YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said, as cited by Rudaw.
“We just hope if we are not involved that the worldwide norms and standards are respected”, he said. This news story is related to Print/145364-Turkey-sends-more-tanks-to-Syria-demands-Kurdish-fighters-retreat/ – breaking news, latest news, pakistan ne. Efforts at a rapprochement with Ankara threaten to undermine its previous policy in Iraq and Syria of relying on Kurdish militias, which have been supplied with extensive weaponry and training by the USA and its allies, as key collaborators in the fight against the Islamic State.
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“The Jarablus operation was certainly an anomaly for coalition forces, as ISIS essentially conceded one of its last strategic border towns with Turkey”, said Nicholas Glavin, a senior researcher at the U.S. Naval War College’s Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups.
