Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said yesterday that Turkey “never asks permission” from anyone before launching a military operation in Syria.
“We can exchange ideas, but we have never asked and will never ask permission for our military operations against terrorism,” he said, warning that “it could happen overnight, unexpectedly.”
During a trilateral summit between Iran and Russia on Tuesday in Tehran, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been threatening to launch a Turkish military operation in Syria since May, said he is counting on “the support of Russia and Iran in the fight against terrorism.”
But his colleagues have warned that any operation in northeast Syria would harm various parties in the region. Cavusoglu recalled that Turkey “suspended” its operations in eastern Syria in October 2019 “following promises made by the US and Syria.”
The agreement, signed in 2019 under the auspices of Washington and Moscow, provided for the withdrawal of Kurdish forces to a distance of 30 km from the Turkish border.
The Turkish minister emphasized that “these promises have not been fulfilled.
And attacks against Syrian opponents and our soldiers have intensified.”
What would the US do in our place? What will Russia do?
Since 2016, Turkey has conducted three military operations in Syria on its southern borders against Kurdish groups and organizations, and in early 2020 launched an offensive against the forces of the Syrian regime.
The YPG controls part of northern Syria and is the main Kurdish group in Syria, which Ankara considers an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which Turkey, the US and the EU classify as a “terrorist organization”. .
On the other hand, yesterday Iraq delivered to Turkey the victims of a bombing that killed nine civilians at a tourist resort in Kurdistan, raising tensions between the two neighboring countries.
A military plane was sent to the airport of Erbil, the capital of the autonomous region of Kurdistan, to transport the bodies of the dead to Baghdad. Nine coffins were delivered by ambulance, including the coffin of a small child, and they pulled out the Iraqi flag and wreaths.
Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein and regional president Nechirvan Barzani carried a small coffin to the plane before it took off for Baghdad.
The Iraqi Prime Minister declared a national day of mourning as popular anger in Iraq escalated over the tragedy that left nine Iraqis dead and 23 injured.
Iraq accused Turkish forces of organizing a bloody bombardment of a tourist resort in the Zakho district. Ankara, for its part, has denied responsibility for the attack, blaming militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an organization that Turkey and its Western allies classify as “terrorist” and lead an insurgency. against him since 1984.
Ankara, which has deployed military bases in northern Iraq for 25 years, has repeatedly launched hostilities against the PKK rebels, who have training camps and rear bases in the region.
Turkish military operations in northern Iraq are exacerbating pressure on relations between Ankara and the central Iraqi government in Baghdad, which accuses Turkey of violating its territorial sovereignty even though the two countries are important trading partners.
Yesterday morning, dozens of demonstrations took place in front of the Turkish entry visa center, amid strict security measures, demanding the expulsion of the Turkish ambassador from Iraq.
