Turkish President threatens ground operation into Syria
Rocket fire from Syrian territory kills at least three people
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday threatened to launch a ground operation into Syria after cross-border air strikes on Kurdish positions and deadly fire on Turkey.
“There is no question that this operation be limited to only an aerial operation,” Erdogan told reporters on a flight home from Qatar after attending the opening of the World Cup.
The Turkish leader has threatened a new military operation into northern Syria since May.
Overnight, Turkey hit dozens of targets in northern Syria as well as northern Iraq, a week after an Istanbul bomb attack killed six people and which Ankara blamed on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Bitter memories
Kurdish groups and authorities have denied responsibility for the November 13 bombing, which also wounded 81 people, and which revived bitter memories of a wave of attacks in Turkey between 2015 and 2017.
Rocket fire from Syrian territory yesterday killed at least three people, including a child, in Turkey’s border town of Karkamis, said interior minister Suleyman Soylu.
“Competent authorities, our defence ministry and chief of staff will together decide the level of force that should be used by our ground forces,” Erdogan said.
“We have already warned that we will make those who violate our territory pay.”
Funerals
Turkey’s raids, mainly targeting positions held by Kurdish forces in northern and northeastern Syria, killed at least 35 people and wounded 70 others, according to the British-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). Ankara said the targeted Kurdish bases were being used to launch “terrorist” attacks on Turkish soil.
Yesterday, thousands of people gathered to bury 11 people who died in Al Malikiyah in Syria’s far northeast, including a journalist working for a Kurdish news agency, with the caskets draped in red-white-andgreen Kurdish flags.
“We urge the world, all those who care about human rights and the great powers” to press Turkey to stop its strikes that “target us with planes and drones”, a mourner named Shaaban, 58, told AFP during the funerals.
Turkey hit dozens of targets in northern Syria and northern Iraq, a week after an Istanbul bomb attack killed six people and which Ankara blamed on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.