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After military shake-up, Erdogan says Turkey to tackle Kurds in Syria

Rogue Valley

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After military shake-up, Erdogan says Turkey to tackle Kurds in Syria


By Dominic Evans and Orhan Coskun
August 8, 2017

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Days after a reshuffle of Turkey's top military commanders, President Tayyip Erdogan has revived warnings of military action against Kurdish fighters in Syria that could set back the U.S.-led battle against Islamic State. Kurdish militia are spearheading an assault against the hardline militants in their Syrian stronghold Raqqa, from where Islamic State has planned attacks around the world for the past three years. But U.S. backing for the Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria has infuriated Turkey, which views their growing battlefield strength as a security threat due to a decades-old insurgency by the Kurdish PKK within in its borders. There have been regular exchanges of rocket and artillery fire in recent weeks between Turkish forces and YPG fighters who control part of Syria's northwestern border.

Turkey, which has the second largest army in NATO after the United States, reinforced that section of the border at the weekend with artillery and tanks and Erdogan said Turkey was ready to take action. "We will not leave the separatist organization in peace in both Iraq and Syria," Erdogan said in a speech on Saturday in the eastern town of Malatya, referring to the YPG in Syria and PKK bases in Iraq. "We know that if we do not drain the swamp, we cannot get rid of flies." The YPG denies Turkish allegations of links with Kurdish militants inside Turkey, saying it is only interested in self-rule in Syria and warning that any Turkish assault will draw its fighters away from the battle against Islamic State which they are waging in an alliance with local Arab forces.

Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants to wage open warfare against Kurdish YPG forces, a US Syrian ally that since October of 2016 has been engaged in retaking the ISIS capital city of Raqqa and is now fighting in the western districts of the city. Erdoğan ultimate design is to remove Syrian Kurds from their traditional northern Rojava homeland region of Syria that borders Turkey.
 
I think it is time for the West to cut ties with Turkey. Make it very clear it will not be tolerated.
 
Lol ****ing Turkey. ISIS being at their door committing mass murder is no problem and even welcome. Kurds on the other hand? HELL NO!
 
I read an article today about how NATO needs to get its nukes out of Turkey like, yesterday. And although the U.S. has a missile defense system in the northeast, and a base in the southeast, the recent conflict between U.S. forces and Turkish-backed rebels on top of the consulate attack against Kurdish-American protesters has got both the Pentagon and the American public unanimously opposed to Erdogan, and they have sympathizers in; Germany, France, Britain, China, and other NATO and EU countries. Yet still, Michael Flynn's firing and investigation regarding his Turkish ties has put the Erdogan regime in a tight spot over a year after the coup attempt and Erdogan's seizure of power and imprisonment of political opponents and journalists (the latter of which is a larger number than any country, including Iran and North Korea).
 
After military shake-up, Erdogan says Turkey to tackle Kurds in Syria




Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants to wage open warfare against Kurdish YPG forces, a US Syrian ally that since October of 2016 has been engaged in retaking the ISIS capital city of Raqqa and is now fighting in the western districts of the city. Erdoğan ultimate design is to remove Syrian Kurds from their traditional northern Rojava homeland region of Syria that borders Turkey.

:roll: I called it in early August.


Erdogan says Turkey must clear Syria's Afrin of YPG militia

NOVEMBER 17, 2017

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey needed to clear the Afrin region of northwest Syria of Kurdish YPG militia fighters, who have been in the forefront of the battle there against Islamic State insurgents. Erdogan, speaking in Ankara to officials from the ruling AK Party, also expressed disappointment with the United States, which backs the YPG. Ankara views the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency in Turkey and is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union. “We need to cleanse Afrin of the structure there called the YPG terrorist organisation,” Erdogan said.

Erdogan is planning a Turkish military occupation and an ethnic cleansing of the Kurdish Afrin, Jazira, and Kobane cantons (regions) on the Syrian side of the border collectively known as Rojava. The male and female (YPG/YPJ) Kurdish militias from Rojava comprise ~80% of the Syrian fighters working with US Special Forces against ISIS. Last month these Kurdish forces liberated the city of Ar-Raqqah in central Syria which was the capital city of the ISIS caliphate spanning Syria and Iraq.

In September of 2014, ISIS had the Kurdish Rojava city of Kobane surrounded on three sides and were pounding it with artillery, tank shells, rockets, and suicide bombers. Erdogan closed the fourth (Turkish border) side, thus denying the YPG/YPJ resupply of fighters and munitions, and denying the remaining citizens of Kobane a means of escape. What saved Kobane was US air power working closely with YPG/YPJ forces defending the city. This battle marked the beginning of the end of ISIS in Syria. Erdogan's intent in closing the Turkish border in this sector was to allow ISIS to brutally slaughter every Kurd soldier/civilian remaining in the city of Kobane.

11turkey-master1050.jpg

October 2014. View from the north (the closed Turkish border) at the Kurdish city of Kobane in Syria, surrounded and attacked by ISIS from the south, east, and west.
 
Syrian Kurdish YPG Accuses Turkey of Afrin Aggression


Reuters
Nov. 21, 2017

23621277_153369838745415_8584493570788366806_n-775x516.jpg

Turkish armored convoy heading to the Kurdish Syrian canton of Afrin on 20 November 2017

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A Syrian Kurdish militia accused Turkish forces on Tuesday of "aggression and escalation" in the Afrin region, which it controls, on Syria's northwestern border with Turkey. Ankara has sent forces into areas of Syria adjacent to Afrin to oppose the influence of the YPG militia, which it sees as a branch of the PKK movement that has waged a three-decade insurgency inside Turkey. The YPG spearheads the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias fighting Islamic State with the help of a U.S.-led coalition. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said last week that Turkey needed to "cleanse Afrin" of the YPG. On Monday, Ankara accused it of attacking an observation post in Idlib province. It said Turkey had fired artillery and machine guns at several villages in Afrin on Monday. Turkey backed an incursion into a part of Syria immediately east of Afrin last year in support of anti-government Syrian rebel factions, which led to frequent clashes with the YPG. Last month, Ankara also sent some troops into Idlib, south and west of Afrin, as part of a deal it has agreed with Russia and Iran to set up so-called "de-escalation zones" to reduce fighting.

Yesterday, another Turkish armored column entered the Afrin canton (one of the three cantons [regions] that make up the Kurdish region of Rojava in northern Syria) in effect propositioning for a pincer offensive. It has been the Kurdish YPG/YPJ militias working with US Special Forces that have defeated ISIS in central Syria.

Is Trump going to allow this Erdogan treachery towards a US regional ally?
 
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