Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday 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 this could happen suddenly and unexpectedly. During a trilateral summit between Iran and Russia on Tuesday in Tehran, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has threatened to launch a Turkish military operation in Syria since May, said he was 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. Since 2016, Turkey has launched three military operations in Syria on its southern borders against Kurdish militias and organizations, and in early 2020 launched an offensive against the forces of the Syrian regime.
The YPGs control parts of northern Syria and are the main Kurdish militias in Syria, which Ankara considers an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which Turkey, the US and the European Union classify as a “terrorist organization”. .
