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.

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Carjosse said:

I think it is time for the West to cut ties with Turkey. Make it very clear it will not be tolerated.

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Rogue Valley said:

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

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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.

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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.

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Reuters
Nov. 21, 2017

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.

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