Turks to push deeper into Syria
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to expand Ankara’s operations in a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria eastward, towards the frontier with Iraq.
His comments, made during an address to local leaders of his ruling party in Ankara yesterday, appear to be in defiance of the United States, which has urged Turkey to keep its campaign in Syria ‘‘limited in scope and duration’’ and to focus on ending the war.
Erdogan said Turkish forces’ push into Afrin would stretch further east, to the Syrian Kurdish town of Manbij, and towards the border with Iraq ‘‘until no terrorist is left’’.
Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish forces, known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a terrorist group because of its purported links to Kurdish insurgents within Turkey’s own borders. Manbij is held by the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is dominated by the YPG.
US troops are not present in Afrin but are embedded with the SDF in other parts of Syria, where they are working to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group.
‘‘We will clear Manbij of terrorists ... No-one should be disturbed by this because the real owners of Manbij are not these terrorists, they are our Arab brothers,’’ Erdogan said.
‘‘From Manbij, we will continue our struggle up to the border with Iraq, until no terrorist is left.’’
Ankara’s push into Manbj would put Turkish troops in proximity to American soldiers there.
Erdogan remarks came on the seventh day of the Turkish incursion into Afrin, which started last Sunday.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s Health Minister Ahmet Demircan said the operation into Afrin had led to 14 deaths on the Turkish side. Three Turkish soldiers and 11 Syrian opposition fighters allied with them had been killed in fighting since January 20, he said. Some 130 others were wounded.
The SDF said the first week of Turkey’s incursion had left more than 100 civilians and fighters dead. The group said that among the dead were 59 civilians and 43 fighters, including eight women fighters.
At least 134 civilians were wounded in the week-long clashes, it added.
Turkey’s military said at least 343 ‘‘terrorists’’ had been ‘‘neutralised’’ during the campaign, a figure the Syrian Kurds dispute.
In his speech, Erdogan slammed the US alliance with the Kurdish forces in Manbij and other parts of Syria. ‘‘Our greatest sadness is to see these terrorist organisations run wild holding US flags in this region,’’ he said.
Erdogan said US President Donald Trump had asked him ‘‘not to criticise us so much’’ during a telephone call on Thursday.
‘‘OK,’’ said Erdogan, quoting what he allegedly told Trump in the conversation. ‘‘But how can a strategic partner do such a thing to its strategic partner?’’
Erdogan also accused the Syrian Kurdish militia of using civilians as human shields in Afrin to try to slow down the advance of the Turkish forces and of Turkishbacked Syrian opposition fighters.
He also criticised calls by the US and other allies for a quick resolution of Turkey’s incursion, saying military interventions in places in Afghanistan and Iraq lasted for several years.
The Pentagon described Turkey’s military operations in Afrin as not helpful and threatening to damage the ongoing fight against Isis militants in Syria.
Joint Staff Director Lieutenant General Kenneth F McKenzie Jr said US military commanders were continuing to talk with Turkey about the establishment of some type of safe zone along the TurkeySyria border. He said it was ‘‘simply an idea floating around right now’’ and there had been no decisions yet.
McKenzie said the US was clearly tracking the movements of Turkish troops but downplayed the chances of American forces being threatened in the vicinity of the town of Manbij.
Meanwhile, thousands of Turkish Cypriots chanting ‘‘we want our country back’’ took to the streets of Nicosia yesterday after calls for a mass demonstration against Ankara’s heavy-handed policies towards the breakaway republic.
Tensions with Turkey’s neoIslamist government mounted this week after a mob of nationalist hardliners attacked the office of Turkish Cypriot newspaper Afrika for running a front-page article critical of the country’s military offensive against Kurdish militants in Syria. Led by the nationalist Grey Wolves, they went on the rampage after Erdogan slammed the paper’s stance as ‘‘immoral’’ and ‘‘shameless’’. Afrika drew parallels with Ankara’s 1974 military operation in Cyprus, when Turkey seized the island’s northern third.
The demonstration, on the eve of presidential elections in the island’s Greek-run south, comes amid mounting tensions between Turkey and the minority in whose name it invaded Cyprus almost 45 years ago.
The 120,000-strong Turkish Cypriot community has increasingly complained of being overrun by devout Muslim settlers from the mainland. The grievances have grown since the collapse of United Nations-mediated reunification talks last year.