FILE IMAGE: Turkish Defence Ministry via AP
The news agency TASS reports (source):
Turkish troops will enter Syria’s Manbij if Kurdish units fail to leave the city, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at an Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) event in Istanbul on Friday.
“We are determined to ensure stability and security east of the Euphrates River [in Syria]. If Manbij is not cleared [of Kurdish units], then we will enter the city,” he said.
According to the Turkish president, “the United States is trying to distract Turkey by delaying the implementation of the Manbij roadmap.”
“The US seeks to weaken our resolve to fight against terrorists,” Erdogan added.
On Wednesday, the Turkish leader said that Ankara might soon launch a military operation east of the Euphrates River in Syria in order to target Kurdish fighters.
Turkey previously carried out two military operations in Syria dubbed Olive Branch and Euphrates Shield. Erdogan said at a press conference following the G20 summit in Argentina that Ankara would soon clear areas east of the Euphrates River from terrorist units.
Over the past several months, the Turkish president has many times announced plans to carry out an operation against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) concentrated east of the Euphrates River. Ankara believes the YPG to be a branch of the branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
Talk is cheap. Is this the 10th threat by Erdogan against Kurdish villages, women and children? Erdogan is desperate to protect his ISIS fighters now that Hajin has fallen to Kurdistan. The rest of that Turkish ISIS terrorist pocket will be gone soon enough.
It’s Erdogan. He always has to huff and puff for a couple of months, and maybe then he springs into action.
What a joke, Erdogan makes insane threats and thinks the Kurdish militias are going to move away, that just brought them in closer to the areas he supposedly doesn’t want them in, and in greater numbers, but maybe that’s exactly why Erdogan said what he did, he’s probably going to launch the invasion into the north east instead, I hope the Kurds aren’t putting all their eggs in the one basket. I’ve noticed a lot of movement there which is supposedly to counter the US OB posts, maybe there’s more there than we know of, like a small invasion force ready to catch the Kurds off guard.