Syria Kurds call up civilians to fight Turkey offensive
We urge all civilians to head to the border with Turkey... to resist during this delicate historical moment Kurdish administration
QAMISHLI (SYRIA) — The Kurdish administration in northeastern Syria called up civilians on Wednesday to defend the region against a feared Turkish assault, believed to be imminent.
“We announce three days of general mobilisation in northern and eastern Syria,” it said in a statement, urging all civilians to “head to the border with Turkey... to resist during this delicate historical moment”.
It also called on Kurds in Syria and abroad to protest against Ankara’s planned offensive.
Ankara said on Tuesday it would “shortly” begin an offensive into northern Syria, as it sent more armoured vehicles to the border.
Turkey’s communications director Fahrettin Altun wrote in the Washington Post that Kurdish forces can either “defect” or Turkey will “have no choice but to stop them from disrupting our counter-Daesh efforts”.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani called on Turkey to show restraint and avoid military action in Northern Syria, while Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan by phone to avoid any steps in Syria that could damage its peace process. —
MANBIJ (SYRIA) — Turkey ignored US sanctions and pressed on with its assault on northern Syria on Tuesday, while the Russiabacked Syrian army roared into one of the most hotly contested cities abandoned by US forces in Donald Trump’s retreat.
Reuters journalists accompanied Syrian government forces who entered the centre of the city of Manbij, a flashpoint where US troops had previously conducted joint patrols with Turkey.
Russian and Syrian flags were flying from a building on the city outskirts, and from a convoy of military vehicles.
US forces announced they had pulled out of the city.
A week after reversing US policy and moving troops out of the way to allow Turkey to attack Washington’s Syrian allies, Trump announced a package of sanctions to punish Ankara.
But the measures — mainly a hike in steel tariffs and a pause in trade talks — were less robust than financial markets had expected, and Trump’s critics derided them as too feeble to have an impact. The Turkish lira, which had fallen on the expectation of tougher US measures, recovered after the sanctions were announced, as did its bond and stock markets, with traders noting that Trump had spared Turkish banks.
Trump’s unexpected decision to withhold protection from Syria’s Kurds after a phone call with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan a week ago swiftly upended five years of US policy in the Middle East.
The withdrawal gives a free hand to Washington’s adversaries in the world’s deadliest ongoing war, namely Syrian President Bashar Al Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies.
The United States announced on Sunday it was withdrawing its entire force of 1,000 troops from northern Syria. Its former Kurdish allies immediately forged a new alliance with Assad’s Russiabacked government, inviting the army into towns across the breadth of their territory.
Syrian forces moved swiftly to fill the void left by departing Americans from Manbij west of the Euphrates river, which Turkey has vowed to capture. —