Syria offensive will continue: Erdogan
Will ensure no ISIS fighters leave Northeastern Syria: Turkey President says; Condemns US moves
Istanbul, Oct. 15: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that Turkey's operation against Kurdish militants in northern Syria would not stop until “our objectives have been achieved”.
Turkey is in the seventh day of its assault against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which it sees as a “terrorist” off-shoot of Kurdish insurgents in its own territory.
“God willing, we will quickly secure the region stretching from Manbij to our border with Iraq and ensure that, in the first stage, one million, and then two million Syrian refugees return to their homes of their own free will,” Erdogan said in a televised speech in Baku, where he was attending a regional conference.
He said 1,000 squarekilometres of Syrian territory had so far been “liberated from the separatist terrorist organisation”.
Turkey plans to establish a safe zone stretching across northern Syria, to which it can repatriate many of the 3.6 million refugees that it is hosting from the Syrian conflict.
Meanwhile, the Turkey President vowed not to allow any Islamic State fighters to escape northern Syria, in an editorial published Tuesday, following fears from Western nations over its offensive in the region.
“We will ensure that no ISIS (Islamic State) fighters leave northeastern Syria,” Erdogan wrote in the Wall Street Journal, adding that Western countries were hypocritical to worry that Turkey’s operation against Kurdish militants risked a mass escape of jihadists.
“The same countries that lecture Turkey on the virtues of combating ISIS today, failed to stem the influx of foreign terrorist fighters in 2014 and 2015,” he wrote.
Kurdish authorities claim the Turkish assault makes it difficult to maintain security at their detention centres.
They say 800 IS family members escaped a camp at Ain Issa on Sunday, and five jihadists broke out of another prison.