Turkey signals no quick end to operations in Syria

We will continue our operations (in Syria) until IS and other terrorist elements are taken out, said Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan

I S TA N B U L / K A R K A MI S : Turkish forces will remain in Syria for as long as it takes to cleanse the border of IS and other militants, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Friday, after a truck bombing by Kurdish insurgents killed at least 11 police officers.

The suicide attack at a police headquarters in a province bordering Syria and Iraq came two days after Turkey launched its first major military incursion into Syria, an operation meant to drive IS out of the border area and stop Kurdish militias from seizing ground in their wake.

Turkey, a NATO member and part of the US-led coalition against IS, has seen a series of deadly bombings this year blamed on the radicals. But it also fears Kurdish militias in Syria will seize a swathe of border territory and embolden Kurdish insurgents on its own soil.

President Tayyip Erdogan said the bombing in Sirnak province would increase Turkey’s determination as it fights terrorist groups at home and abroad. Yildirim said there was no doubt the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy, was responsible. “From the beginning we have been defending Turkey’s territorial integrity. We are also defending Syria’s territorial integrity. The aim of these terrorist organisations is... to form a state in these countries... They will never succeed,” Yildirim told a news conference in Istanbul.

“We will continue our operations (in Syria) until we fully guarantee security of life and property for our citizens and the security of our border. We will continue until Daesh (IS) and other terrorist elements are taken out.”

After he spoke, the PKK claimed responsibility for the attack on the police headquarters, according to a website affiliated to the group.

Syria has condemned the Turkish operation, codenamed “Eu- phrates Shield”, as a breach of its sovereignty.

Turkish special forces, tanks and jets launched the incursion in support of Syrian rebels, mostly Turkmen and Arab, who quickly took the border town of Jarablus from IS on Wednesday. An alliance of 23 Kurdish parties in Syria also condemned the Turkish operation on Friday. In a joint statement, they called for a complete withdrawal of all Turkish forces from the country and accused Ankara of trying to occupy Syria under the pretence of fighting terrorism.

Turkish military vehicles shuttled in and out of Syria on Friday, Reuters witnesses said, including a construction machine that helped flatten the route for a tank. Controlled explosions rang out around the Karkamis border crossing as Turkish security forces removed mines and booby traps left by IS. Ismail Metin, the com- mander of Turkey’s second army responsible for the borders with Syria and Iraq, visited Jarablus on Friday, local sources said.

Turkey has shown little sign so far of a quick withdrawal. US Vice President Joe Biden, who met Erdogan in Ankara on Wednesday, said Turkey was ready to stay in Syria for as long as it takes to destroy IS. A Syrian rebel commander in charge of one of the main groups involved in the Turkish-backed operation told Reuters the forces now aimed to move westward after taking Jarablus, an advance that could take weeks or months to complete.

Colonel Ahmad Osman, speaking to Reuters from Jarablus, said the priority was now to advance about 70 km (40 miles) west to Marea, a town where rebels have long had a frontline with IS.

“The situation in Syria and Iraq is getting worse,” Yildirim told a joint news conference with the visiting prime minister of Bulgaria, which has also been struggling to slow migrant flows.

“We’re cleansing IS and other terrorist elements (in northern Syria) so people living there are not forced to leave their homes. But the problem has to be comprehensively handled at the EU level. Solutions are needed quickly.”

The suicide bombing in Turkey’s southeastern town of Cizre is another reminder of the risks Ankara faces as its gets drawn ever more deeply into Syria’s conflict, with the threat of reprisals from both IS and Kurdish insurgents. The provincial governor’s office said 11 police officers were killed and 78 people, three of them civilians, wounded.

Large plumes of smoke billowed from the blast site. Photographs showed a large three-storey building reduced to its concrete shell, with no walls or windows, surrounded by rubble. 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. Washington, however, has backed the YPG in a separate campaign against IS in northern Syria. Turkish troops fired on YPG fighters south of Jarablus on Thursday, highlighting the cross-cutting of interests of two pivotal NATO allies.

The Cizre attack came as Turkey has been weakened by a failed July 15 military coup. More than 1,700 military personnel have been removed for their alleged role in the putsch, including some 40 per cent of admirals and generals, raising concern about the NATO member’s ability to protect itself. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Twitter that IS, the PKK and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia were all attacking to take advantage of the failed coup.