Civilians in besieged Syrian city will be safe, insists Erdogan
Turkey’s premier pledges ‘escape corridor’ for Kurdish enclave’s people as his troops press assault
TURKEY’S president yesterday said civilians would be led out of the Syrian enclave of Afrin through a “special corridor”, as his country’s offensive against the Kurdish-majority city intensified.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Turkish troops and allied Syrian rebels would have completely encircled Afrin – home to more than 700,000 people – by the end of the day.
“All care is being taken. Right now the first civilians are being taken out of Afrin in vehicles through a special corridor,” the president said, as his forces bombed the last remaining road out.
Afrin, which is controlled by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), is bordered to the north and west by Turkey and to the south by governmentcontrolled Syrian territory. Turkish raids have killed 10 fighters loyal to the Syrian regime, which last month deployed forces to Afrin’s southern outskirts after the Kurds asked for help. The fighters then shelled Turkish positions.
Despite the Kurds’ desire for autonomy from Damascus, they have largely avoided direct confrontation while both were fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) and rebel groups. As the Syrian civil war enters its eighth year today, the latest advances risk pitting Turkey against the Bashar al-assad regime – a confrontation it has so far gone to great lengths to avoid, preferring to fight through proxies.
Much of the territory captured so far in Turkey’s two-month offensive has been rural. However, any incursion into the more densely populated city has the potential for high civilian casualties.
The violence in Afrin has displaced thousands of civilians and left those trapped there with limited resources. Azad Mohamed, a resident, said he waited in line for eight hours to get a few loaves of bread. The water supply to the city has also been cut off for a week. The International Committee for the Red Cross warned yesterday that any evacuation of Afrin must adhere to humanitarian rules.
Turkey launched “Operation Olive Branch” with the aim of clearing YPG militants, who it considers terrorists, from along its southern frontier.
Mr Erdoğan has also previously suggested that some of the more than three million Syrians currently seeking refuge in Turkey could be resettled in Afrin as it was “rightfully Arab land”.
Since the start of the war in 2011, the YPG and its allies have set up three autonomous regions in the north.
Nato member countries have remained relatively quiet over their ally’s offensive. “The Kurdish YPG forces were celebrated for defeating Isil in Raqqa less than a year ago, and now, as Turkey invades Afrin, the world is silent,” Rosa Gilbert, co-secretary of the Uk-based Kurdistan Solidarity Campaign, told The Daily Telegraph. “There is the complicity of Western governments who have allowed their Nato ally Turkey to carry out an unprovoked, illegal and illegitimate invasion using UK jets, German tanks and Italian helicopters.”
The Syrian war passes a grim sevenyear milestone today, but instead of winding down, the violence has only escalated.
Bombardment by the Syrian regime and its ally Russia killed 25 civilians, among them three children, in the embattled rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta yesterday, a monitor said.
“At least 25 civilians including three children were killed, most of them in regime air strikes and others in Russian
‘As Turkey invades, the world is silent’
raids on an area controlled by Faylaq alrahman [a rebel group],” the Britainbased Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
Jan Egeland, a senior adviser to the United Nations, warned that the country could see “tremendous battles” for two remaining rebel enclaves even once a government onslaught on Eastern Ghouta is over, Idlib (in the far north-west) and, in the south, Deraa.