INSTABILITY Turkey launched a series of airstrikes in northeastern Syria on November 20 on positions of Kurdish fighters, which it describes as “terrorists”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on November 13, 2022 — Photo by Adem ALTAN/AFP
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin the need for to “clean” northern Syria from Kurdish forces, in a telephone interview on Sunday.
“It is important and a priority to clear along the border of terrorists, at least 30 km deep, in line with the Sochi 2019 memorandum,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan, referring to Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria, according to a press release. of the Turkish Presidency.
A new conflict that is emerging?
The Turkish head of state had been threatening since November to launch a ground military operation in northern Syria to repel YPG fighters whom Ankara accuses of being behind an attack that killed six died at Istanbul on November 13. Kurdish forces have denied any involvement.
In 2019, an agreement between Ankara and Moscow put an end to another Turkish offensive, promising the creation of a “safe zone” 30 km to protect Turkey from attacks that could come from Syrian territory. An agreement on similar terms had been separately concluded between Ankara and Washington in 2019.
Moscow and Washington opposed to Turkish maneuvers
Turkey accuses Russia, as well as the United States, for not respecting these agreements and for having failed to comply with them. keep the YPG away from the Turkish border. Turkey launched on November 20 a series of air raids in northeastern Syria on positions of Kurdish fighters, whom she describes as “terrorists”.
A few hundred soldiers of the international coalition are deployed in this region at the hands of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF, dominated by the Kurds), spearheading the fight against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) driven out of Syria. from its fiefdoms in Syria in 2019.
Both Moscow and Washington have asserted; their opposition to a possible Turkish ground incursion into northern Syria.