Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu threatened to attack Syrian army if she came to aid of Kurdish militia YPG in Syrian province of Afrin. “If regime comes to expel PKK and YPG, that is no problem,” he said during a visit to Jordanian capital Amman. “But if she comes to defend YPG, n we and Turkish soldiers can stop nobody and nothing.”
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Russian colleague Vladimir Putin discussed situation on telephone. Turkish government officials said that two politicians had reaffirmed ir determination to cooperate in fight against terrorism in Syria. The offensive in Afrin was also an issue. Details were not known.
Turkey invaded neighbouring country in January to combat terrorist YPG from ir point of view and to create a security zone at border. The Kurdish militia, also supported by United States, has contacted government of President Bashar al-Assad with a request for military assistance. The first government-related militias are reported to arrive in embattled province of Afrin already this Monday. The state news agency SANA, for example, reported that so-called national forces would support local units in fending off a “Turkish aggression”.
However, former chairman of Syrian Kurdish party PYD, Salih Muslim, denied se reports. “There are currently negotiations with Government with mediation of Russia, but no agreement has yet been reached,” he said in Berlin. It is not easy to reach an agreement with government of Assad, “because for us it makes no difference wher we are oppressed by Turkey or by this regime of Baath Party”.
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The PYD is dominant party in Kurdish controlled territories in norrn Syria and closely associated with Syrian-Kurdish YPG units. Muslim called for support from EU and US. “The Syrian government still has idea that it can take full control of area, as before 2011,” said former PYD chairman. But Kurds would not accept this. “We want democracy and federalism.”
