QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Turkish Present Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues threatening to launch a military operation on Syria’s north as the US continues releasing mere words, urging Ankara to stop escalation.
For days, Turkish forces have been launching airstrikes on areas situated on a wide-scale space in north and northeastern Syria, leaving dozens of victims and devastation in infrastructures.
Erdogan announced that tanks of the Turkish army will advance in the areas in northern Syria and Iraq soon to attack positions of what he claimed to be “terrorist organizations.”
“We have consistently communicated our serious concerns to Turkey, in public and private. … We have urged Turkey against such operations, just as we have urged our Syrian partners against attacks or escalation,” a US State Department spokesperson said Tuesday in an exclusive statement to North Press.
The spokesperson told North Press that the recent operations could undermine the campaign against the Islamic State Organization (ISIS) and put civilians’ lives at risk.
The statement added, “We continue to oppose any military action that destabilizes the situation in Syria or violates Iraq’s sovereignty through military actions uncoordinated with the Iraqi government.”
The representative of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) in the US, Sinem Muhammad, said on November 20 that the “US Department of State informed the SDC office in the country of its rejection of any [Turkish] military operation, whether air or ground, against the areas held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in north and east Syria.”
On November 19, Brett H. McGurk, US Coordinator of the Middle East and North Africa, Security Council described the situation in northeast Syria post Turkish strikes as “difficult” and called for stop destabilizing the area.
McGurk mentioned, through his participation in the IISS Manama Dialogue, stressed on the US commitment, saying, “We want to make sure that the border with Turkey is secure.”
“We do not have information on who carried out that attack,” McGurk said regarding Istanbul blast on November 13.
Saleh Muslim, co-chair of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), described on Tuesday the US statements about the massive Turkish attacks on northeastern Syria as “conflicting.”
He pointed out that some officials in the US call for stopping the military escalation, while others talk about the operations’ impacts on the efforts of fighting ISIS.
On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged Ankara to “refrain from steps that could lead to a serious destabilization of the situation in general.”
As for France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it voiced concern over Turkish escalation in Syria, calling on Turkey to show self-control.
Muslim said that Turkey is unable to launch a large scale military operation on northern Syria without the approval of at least the guarantor states in Syria.
On Sunday at dawn, Turkey has started launching large scale airstrikes on dozens of posts along the Syrian-Turkish border in northeastern Syria. The airstrikes are still continues not to mention constant ground shelling, killing and injuring dozens of civilians and military personnel.