Turkey vows to attack more Kurdish towns in Syria

TURKEY’S president, buoyed by victory in Afrin, yesterday threatened to extend his country’s operation to more Kurdish strongholds across Syria.

A defiant Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey’s military will shift their campaign to several towns under the control of the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG) militia, including Manbij, where US troops are positioned, “until this terror corridor is fully eliminated”.

Any such move would pit Nato allies against one another, a confrontation Washington is keen to avoid.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief criticised Turkey yesterday over its military offensive, code-named Olive Branch, calling on Ankara not to ratchet up tensions. “I am worried about this,” Federica Mogherini told reporters. She said that international efforts in Syria are supposed to be “aiming at de-escalating the military activities and not escalating them”.

Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebel fighters captured the Kurdish-majority city of Afrin on Sunday, after YPG militants fled among civilians.

More than 200,000 have left the city in recent weeks, while those who chose to stay are facing threats from the Turkey-backed groups, local Kurdish leaders said. They vowed that their forces will make Afrin “a permanent nightmare” for Turkey and its Syrian allies, saying they only withdrew to prevent further civilian deaths.

Against one of Nato’s most powerful armies and with no international backers, the Kurds’ defences melted within days of the Turkish assault on the city.