Turkey assures that it has left 254 members of the Kurdish militia "out of action" (or "neutralized", in its official language), that is, that it has killed, wounded or captured them, in the bombardments that the Kurdish armed forces launched last Sunday in Syria and Iraq, according to the Turkish Defense Ministry. In parallel, the trick president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reiterated on Wednesday that the airstrikes against the Kurdish militias "are only the beginning" and insisted on "his determination" to order a ground operation to secure his southern border, an intervention that he has been pursuing. since May, but which Russia opposes.
"Operation 'Garra Espada' continues with punitive bombardments from the air and from ground artillery vehicles. 471 targets have been hit so far and 254 terrorists have been neutralized," Defense Minister Hulusi Akar explained on Wednesday.
Turkey launched last Sunday an extensive aerial bombardment operation against positions of the Kurdish militia People's Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria and against shelters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Turkey's Kurdish guerrillas, in the northern Iraq. The operation, dubbed 'Sword Claw', has been presented as retaliation for the attack in Istanbul on November 13, which Ankara attributes to a YPG agent, although this militia has denied any involvement.
After the air operation on Sunday, several rockets apparently launched from areas under the control of the YPG hit Turkish border towns with a balance, so far, of two civilian deaths and a dozen wounded. And at least five civilians, including a child, were killed Tuesday in a missile attack on Azaz, a Turkish-controlled town in northern Syria. According to the White Helmets relief group, the missiles came from areas controlled by Kurdish forces and troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Since Monday, Turkish artillery has also been firing at YPG positions in northern Syria, especially in the area of Kobane, a Kurdish stronghold that withstood the siege of Islamic State in 2015 with international support and a border city with Turkey, which points out as the origin of the order for the attack in Istanbul. One of these attacks was a drone that fired very close to a US military base. "We have no problem with any ethnic or religious group, nor with our Kurdish and Arab brothers. We only have one target, and that is the terrorists, be they the PKK-YPG or the Islamic State," Akar stressed in the statement, released by Defense .
The YPG has denounced that Erdogan uses the attack in Istanbul, which left six dead, as a pretext to justify a new intervention in Syria seeking electoral gains for the Turkish elections next June. In fact, Mazlum Kobane, the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to which the YPG belongs, revealed that the terrorist arrested by Turkey comes from a family with ties to the Islamic State. "Three of her brothers fought for IS, one died in Raqqa, another in Manbij and the third in Iraq," he revealed in an interview with Al Monitor. The YPG is considered by Turkey a terrorist organization indistinguishable from the PKK. Although the European Union and the United States consider the PKK a terrorist, the YPG is an ally of Washington in the fight against the jihadist group Islamic State, which has caused a deep rupture with Turkey.
Erdogan on Wednesday repeated his intention to launch a new ground operation in northern Syria "when it is most convenient" for Turkey. Since 2016, Turkish forces have carried out four military interventions in the region, some of which have wrested territory from Kurdish forces, who are defending a self-proclaimed autonomous region that occupies almost a third of Syria.
The president assured that Turkey was more determined than ever to secure its southern border with a "security corridor", in reference to the creation of an area of about 30 kilometers from the Turkish border that Erdogan has claimed for years and that means taking more territory to the Kurds. "We have been part of this corridor (and) we will take care of it starting with places like Tel Rifat, Manbij [in Aleppo province] and Ain al-Arab (Kobane), which are the sources of problems," Erdogan added.
However, Russia has called on Turkey to refrain from a large-scale ground offensive in Syria. Russian negotiator Alexander Lavrentyev said such actions could trigger an escalation of violence. "We hope that our arguments will be heard in Ankara and that other ways to solve the problem will be found," he said, after a new round of talks on Syria with the Turkish and Iranian delegations in Kazakhstan.
In any case, Erdogan managed to get Moscow to commit to the full implementation of the agreements agreed between the two countries to stabilize the situation in northern Syria and clear the area of terrorists. In this context, Russia and Iran to Turkey expressed in the statement "their determination to confront separatist plans aimed at undermining Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity and threatening the national security of neighboring countries, including cross-border attacks and infiltration." , in reference to the Kurdish militias. The three guarantors of the ceasefire in Syria also agreed that "the achievement of permanent security and stability in the northeast is possible only on the basis of maintaining Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity."
The United States, for its part, yesterday urged all parties involved to reduce tension in northern Syria and Iraq because it "puts at risk" the "lasting" defeat of the Islamic State terrorist group. "We have encouraged a de-escalation, we are going to continue to monitor what is happening on the ground," said Pentagon deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh at a press conference. Singh stressed that the US has urged a de-escalation not only for Turkey, but "for all parties involved."
