On November 17, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan vowed to clear the Syrian city of Afrin in the northern Aleppo countryside from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) during a meeting with officials of his Justice and Development Party (AKP), according to Reuters.
“We need to cleanse Afrin of the structure there called the YPG terrorist organization,” Erdogan said.
The president added that Turkey will deal with Afrin like it did during the Euphrates Shield operation, in a hint that Turkey is ready to take military actions against the YPG.
“Everything was clear during the Euphrates Shield operation, and now we are taking similar steps in Idlib, and we will take the same steps in Afrin,” Erdogan said, according to the Turkish Anadolu Agency.
Erdogan also said that Turkey is disappointed by the US, the main backer of the YPG. He accused the US of violating the alliance between the two countries and hindering the solution of many problems.
“We are greatly disappointed by the United States not keeping its promises. Many issues that we could have resolved easily… were pushed to a dead-end,” Erdogan said.
In a related development, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)-linked news agency announced that the Turkish Army deployed a new unit in the area of Sheikh Aqil west of Afrin in the western Aleppo countryside.
An official of HTS told Iba’a that 80 soldiers, 7 armored vehicles and 5 construction vehicles enters Sheikh Aqil from the village of Kafr Lusein in the Syrian-Turkish border.
The newly deployed force will work establishing a new observation position west of Afrin, according to Iba’a. The deployment of the Turkish Army proves that the Turkish president could be serious about “clearing Afrin from the YPG”.
Good. Although I’d rather see the SAA doing it.
SAA and Rusia don’t have a problem with the Afrin area (also home to many non Kurdish refugees). Not good to have Turkey and his FSA trash taking more Syrian territory. Erdogan will do nothing, he just likes to to make speeches for the home crowd.
I disagree. The YPG isn’t any less trash than the FSA. In fact, l’d argue they’re worse because of their separatist nature.
The vast majority of refugees in Afrin were partly arabised kurds from Aleppo and Damascus. Only as of 2016 there have been more arabs coming to Afrin as refugees.
Erdogan has been threatening to attack Afrin for more then half a year and if Turks want to attack Afrin, now is the worst time, in the beginning of winter. Cold, mud, snow will greatly hinder turkish mechanised troops while SDF can defend from the high ground, well entrenched and also having some medium to heavy artillery.
As all the SDF fighters from Afrin partaking in the assault of Raqqah have returned, turks will have a hard time taking the whole of the region, likely getting many hundreds, if not thousands, killed, the more so as turkish airforce has a very much reduced fighting capacity.
Very good and full strategic point of view . good post. ?
The Afrin Kurds are the only decent ones. They’ve fought alongside the SAA before and during the battle for East-Aleppo. They were very crucial during the battle for Castillo road that changed the tide.
Of course they have to be nice to the SAA. Unlike the Rojava Kurds they don’t have access to US weapons and air support and their survival depends on playing nice with Damascus and Moscow.
Oh really? I once saw an Afrin Kurd on Periscope with a US flag next to his YPG flag who refused to answer wether he was a fighter or a civilian while calling the SAA the “Assad army” and he loves Trump.
ABORTION RIGHTS IN AFRIN!!!!
A clear real civil war In israHELL against zionists , not a staged proxy foreigners-terrorists’s from overseas abroad fake civil war , a real civil war against zionists in israHELL to liberate arab Palestine from terrorists-zionists’s occupation is immenent underway !
Alex, we have all read your post that you have reproduced multiple times. It it possible that you could post on another topic please :)
Shaddap Erdocunt
This is like the 165th time so far we hear this from them? =P YPG in Afrin has nowhere to retreat in case of a Turkish invasion. Turkoids will have a hard time over there, it’s complicated…
I don’t like the Kurds, but this anatolian n1gger should stay away from Syria.
LOL ??
Every civilized and educated Turkish don’t agree with his stupidity…
We are greatly disappointed by the United States not keeping its promises.
You mean you really expected them to keep their promises? Haven’t you meet them?
I’m not a fan of Erdogan, but if Israel is free to attack Syrians army whenever it likes or attack Hezbollah units inside Syria, why shouldn’t Erdogan have a pass to do just that? YPG is PKK after all and they conduct terror attacks in Turkey. I think Turkey’s claim is much better than Israel’s. No?
He sounds like Sitting Bull!
It seems to me you overlook trhe fact that Israel and Syria are still officially at war. Act of war are a logical and legal consequence of having a state of war.
Between Turkey and Syria, there is no state of war.
If he didn’t want YPG, why did he fight Assad ? XD.
Erdogan is not a strategist, but he is a strategic failure of a politician.
It’s called not thinking things over before you start. Kinda to what happened when the US invaded Iraq. It usually gets worse the longer a politician is in power. Extra insanity bonus points if its a dictatorial one who cracks down on dissent and doesn’t like to hear things he doesn’t want to hear.
Erdogan is a sunni. He tough that he could use sunnis in Syria to step down Assad and make a sunni group that will work for Turkey. But, he didn’t think that USA will betray him and start helping kurds. The best option for him was just helping Assad. He had the solution but his hate for shias made him make this big mistake.
Lol…..Erdogan and the Light Bulb flag .
“Allah has turned the lights on upstairs and now bids me wipe out the YPG in Afrin, … Allah be praised” !
“Has anyone seen my car keys” ??
He is so funny ! Why doesn’t he cleans his country first from pkk ? Turkey is trying 40 years now to do that with failure result… Big words from a very small president…
Why doesn’t he cleans his country first from pkk ?
he needs lebensraum for turkish kurds outside of turkey.
He needs a hard cock to teach him manners. As for his Espace Vital you are talking about he is not able to get it.
Turkey is always getting away with everything its doing.
It counts 4 genocides (Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, Assyrians) and haven’t recognized or apologized for any of them. It has an active casus beli (threat of war) against another NATO ally member. It continuously has been violating the borders of its neighbors like Greece, Iraq, and Syria. It disregards or questions and defies international treaties and national borders, preaches irredentism and promotes nationalistic loathing against other nations. It has been caught to economically support ISIS jihadists by buying the oil they’ve been stealing from Syria and Iraq. When the ISIS people were besieging the Kurdish town of Kobani in the borders of Syria with Turkey, Turkey helped ISIS by attacking the Syrian Kurds. It continuously violates basic rights of its own people imprisoning journalists who doesn’t speak in favor of the ruling party, and banning all foreign services that want to be neutral, like international web sites. If these things were done by another country other than Turkey, the west would either place sanctions on it or go to war with it. Yet somehow the EU gave Turkey some billions recently and America does absolutely nothing… Conspiracy theorists often say that Israel is getting away with lots of bad stuff, but perhaps they should instead speak of Turkey. For some reason the world has extreme double standards.