Turkey expects swift campaign against U.S.-backed Kurds in Syria

HASSA, Turkey, (Reuters) - Turkey shelled targets in northwest Syria yesterday and said it would swiftly crush U.S.-backed Kurdish YPG fighters in an air and ground offensive on the Afrin region beyond its border.

The three-day-old campaign has opened a new front in Syria’s multisided civil war, realigning a battlefield where outside powers are supporting local combatants.

While Washington and other Western capitals expressed concern, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he had secured a go-ahead for the campaign from Russia, principal backer of Syrian President Bashar alAssad, long Turkey’s foe.

Turkey sees the YPG presence on its southern border as a domestic security threat.

Turkish forces and their Syrian anti-Assad rebel allies began their push on Saturday to clear the northwestern border enclave of Kurdish YPG fighters. Ankara considers the YPG to be allies of insurgents that have fought against the Turkish state for decades. The United States, meanwhile, has armed and aided the YPG as its main ground allies against Islamic State.

Senior U.N. officials briefed the United Nations Security Council behind closed doors on Monday, at the request of France, on the humanitarian and political situation in Syria.

“With respect to the situation in Afrin, it was of course part of the conversation,” said French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre after the meeting, adding that it was mentioned by most of the 15 council members. “France calls on Turkey for restraint in the volatile environment that we all know in Syria.”

But Erdogan said Turkey was determined to press ahead. “There’s no stepping back from Afrin,” he said in a speech in Ankara. “We discussed this with our Russian friends, we have an agreement with them, and we also discussed it with other coalition forces and the United States.”

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Washington had proposed working with Turkey and forces on the ground in Afrin to “see how we can stabilise this situation and meet Turkey’s legitimate concerns for their security.” BEIJING, (Reuters) - China’s violence-prone far western region of Xinjiang will build a “Great Wall” around its borders to prevent the infiltration of militants from outside the country, state media reported yesterday citing the regional governor.

Hundreds of people have been killed in Xinjiang in the past few years in violence between Uighurs, a mostly Muslim people who speak a Turkic language, and ethnic majority Han Chinese, especially in the heavily Uighur southern part of Xinjiang.

China blames the violence in Xinjiang on Islamist extremists and separatists, some of whom it says have links to groups outside the country.

Rights groups and Uighur exiles say it is more a product of Uighur frustration at Chinese controls on their culture and religion. China denies any repression.

Xinjiang governor Shohrat Zakir said Xinjiang would step up border measures to create a “Great Wall”, the official China Daily reported.