Turkmen Council moves its office into Syria

North-Press Agency

As part of Turkey's continued policy of demographic change in the areas which it has occupied in northern Syria, the Turkish-backed Turkmen Council has established a headquarter in the town of al-Rai, in northern Aleppo countryside, which is under the occupation of the Turkish military and its affiliated armed groups, following a decision to transfer its office into Syrian territories.

On Tuesday, December 31, 2019, the Council posted several photos on Facebook, which said it was for the construction of its new headquarters on the north-eastern side of al-Rai. The council announced the relocation of its headquarters into the Syrian interior in northern Aleppo, after announcing the establishment of a new internal system that includes materials that would facilitate the council's administration inside the Syrian territories and the return of the Syrian Turkmens into Syria. This comes after the National Coalition opened its headquarters in northern Aleppo countryside in last April. The Syrian Turkmen Council was formed on 30 March 2013, during a meeting in Ankara in the presence of the Turkish President Erdogan.

With Turkey's formation of the Turkmen Council and its support for the Syrian Islamist groups, it took control over the bordering areas of Azaz, Jarablus and Afrin to Sere-Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) and Tal-Abyad (Gre Spi), and announced a project of demographic change of the areas it had seized under the pretext of establishing the so-called safe zone. It displaced the indigenous people of those areas and resettled the families of the armed groups, in addition to the settlement of the Turkmen.