Turkey to launch offensive in Kurdish-controlled area
Erdogan said both Russia and the United States have been told of the operation, but did not say when it would begin
Turkey will carry out a military operation in a Kurdish-controlled area east of the Euphrates in northern Syria, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday, its third offensive to dislodge Kurdish militia fighters close to its border.
Turkey had in the past warned of carrying out military operations east of the river, but put them on hold ater agreeing with the United States to create a safe zone inside Syria along its northeastern border with Turkey that would be cleared of the Kurdish YPG militia.
But Ankara has accused Washington of stalling progress on seting up the safe zone and has demanded it sever its relations with the YPG, Washington’s main ally on the ground in Syria during the batle against Islamic State, but which Turkey sees as a terrorist organisation.
Erdogan said both Russia and the United States have been told of the operation, but did not say when it would begin. It would mark the third Turkish incursion into Syria in as many years.
“We entered Afrin, Jarablus, and Al-bab. Now we will enter the east of the Euphrates,” Erdogan said on Sunday during a motorway opening ceremony.
Overnight, three Turkish-backed Syrian rebel fighters were killed during clashes with the YPG, state-owned Anadolu Agency reported on Sunday. It said the YPG tried to infiltrate the front lines in Syria’s al-bab area, where Turkey carved out a de facto buffer zone in its 2016 “Euphrates Shield” offensive.
Clashes such as these are frequent in the area, but casualties tend to be rare.
On Thursday, the Kurdish-led administration running north and east Syria issued a statement objecting to Turkish threats to atack the area.
“These threats pose a danger on the area and on a peaceful solution in Syria, and any Turkish aggression on the area will open the way for the return of Daesh, and that aggression will also contribute to the widening of the circle of Turkish occupation in Syria,” the statement said.
It called on the international community to take a stance that stops Turkey from carrying out its threats.
Meanwhile, gazing over his wheat field in northeastern Syria, farmer Adel Othman expects a bumper crop this year, but two rival authorities squabbling over his harvest have dashed his enthusiasm.
Ater successive droughts and eight years of civil war, both the local Kurdish authorities and the Damascus regime are desperate to buy up his region’s produce to feed their people and maintain the peace.
In a country where millions depend on bread as a staple food to survive, both want the wheat grown in the country’s northeastern breadbasket region of Hasakeh.
Farmers in the Kurdish-held region like Othman have been caught up in the middle, with only two potential buyers, neither offering a satisfactory price.
Our “livelihood should not be transformed into a political bargaining chip,” said the 55-year-old, his sky-blue shirt streaked in places with dry earth.
The regime is offering a beter price, but the Kurds have said no wheat can leave the region under their control.
“We’ll sell our crop to the highest bidder,” Othman said in Kurdish by his field in the area of Amuda.
“In the end, a farmer needs to make a profit,” he said, his short black hair slightly unruly above a thick moustache.
Farmers are especially eager to sell their crop to make up for poor harvests in previous years, but also to save them from fires - some claimed by the Daesh group - that have ravaged fields in the region.
Long marginalised, Syria’s Kurds have largely stayed out of the eight-year civil war, instead seting up their own institutions in areas under their control.
But they did lead the Us-backed fight against Daesh in Syria, and are now hoping that will give them leverage in retaining a degree of autonomy in the northeast.
“The Kurds do not want to let wheat out because the production is barely enough to feed the local population,” Syria expert Fabrice Balanche said.
“If the wheat went off to Damascus because of the higher price, it would cause a food crisis,” he added.
According to the World Food Programme, 6.5 million people in Syria are “food insecure”, or do not know where their next meal is coming from.
Agencies