BICOM

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned Syria yesterday against any attempt to prevent the Turkish in Afrin province in north-western Syria.

Syrian state news agency SANA reported yesterday that Kurdish fighters reached a deal to allow Syrian regime forces, pro-regime militias and Shia militias, to enter Afrin and support the “steadfastness of their people in the face of aggression carried out by the forces of the Turkish regime”.

Speaking at a press conference Amman, Jordan, Cavusoglu said that Turkey welcomed the entry of Syrian forces into Afrin if it was to confront fighters belonging to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). Turkey believes the YPG is part of the Syrian wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a designated terror group by the US and EU that has fought a decades-long insurgency inside Turkey.

“If the regime is entering Afrin to oust the YPG, there is no problem. However, if they are entering [Afrin] to protect YPG/PKK, no one can stop us, stop Turkey or the Turkish army,” he said. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke to President Putin yesterday and demanded that Russia intervene to prevent the alliance between the YPG and the Syrian regime.

Last week, YPG chief Sipan Hamo said his forces would have “no problem” with Damascus intervening to help repel Turkey’s assault. “We don’t have a problem with the entry of the Syrian army to defend Afrin and its border in the face of the Turkish occupation,” he said.

Syrian government forces withdrew from Kurdish-majority areas across north of Syria in 2012, paving the way for Kurdish authorities to implement de facto self-rule. Since 2015, the YPG has partnered with the US-led coalition in eastern Syria, where it forms part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that liberated Raqqa from ISIS. Afrin is separated logistically and operationally from the SDF-controlled areas in the East.

Nuri Mahmoud, a spokesman for the YPG, told Al Jazeera yesterday that Syrian government forces are expected to arrive within two days.

Turkey launched its military campaign called “Operation Olive Branch” in the northern Syrian enclave of Afrin last month, aiming to force the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union party (PYD) and its military wing the YPG out of Afrin and to create a buffer zone on its southern border.

Turkey’s objective is to first capture Afrin province and then seize control of Manbij, a city east of Aleppo that is also under Kurdish control. The city of Manbij is thought to be a red-line for the US, as it would bring Turkish forces in close proximity to the US-backed SDF.