Amman – Turkey’s foreign minister on Monday warned against anyintervention by Syrian pro-government forces to support Kurdish militias innorthern Syria, saying it would not prevent Ankara from pressing on withits month-old offensive.
Mevlut Cavusoglu was reacting to a report from Syrian state news agencySANA saying pro-government forces were expected in the Afrin region tocounter the Turkish offensive against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units(YPG) militia.
Turkey views the YPG as a terrorist offshoot of the outlawed KurdistanWorkers’ Party (PKK), blacklisted by Ankara, the United States and theEuropean Union.
“If the regime is entering (Afrin) to oust the PKK, YPG, there is noproblem. But if they are entering to protect the YPG, then no one can stopus and Turkish soldiers,” Cavusoglu said during a visit to Jordan.
“This is true for Afrin, Manbij and the east of the Euphrates River,”Cavusoglu added at a joint news conference in Amman with his Jordaniancounterpart Ayman Safadi.
On Monday, SANA said “popular forces will arrive in Afrin within a fewhours to support its people’s stand against the Turkish regime’s attack onthe area and its people”, citing its correspondent in Aleppo.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has previously threatened to expandthe operation to include the YPG-held town of Manbij and other townsleading to the Iraqi border.
The Turkish army, backed by Syrian rebels, has been conducting a ground andair offensive against the region since January 20 to drive out the YPG.
Cavusoglu said the operation, dubbed “Olive Branch”, was aimed at “removingterrorists” from its southern border.
– Putin, Erdogan phone call –
Damascus previously denounced Ankara’s “aggression” in Afrin but had neverexplicitly said it would intervene before Monday.
Syria’s Kurds have gradually implemented a self-rule model across much ofthe country’s north, including Afrin, since 2012.
Kurdish fighters and government troops have since largely steered clear ofeach other, though there have been short-lived clashes in the cities ofHasakeh and Qamishli.
Last week, YPG chief Sipan Hamo told reporters his forces would have “noproblem” with Damascus intervening to help repel Turkey’s assault.
A few hours after the SANA report, Erdogan spoke on the phone with RussianPresident Vladimir Putin and they discussed the “latest developments inSyria, especially in Afrin and Idlib”, a Turkish presidential source said.
Turkish media quoted Erdogan as telling Putin that any support fromDamascus to the YPG in Afrin “will have consequences” for the regime.
The issue of establishing new observation posts in Idlib was discussed, thesource said.
Turkey, Russia and regime supporter Iran agreed last year to create”de-escalation” zones in four areas including Idlib, where six observationposts have already been set up by Turkish forces to monitor any fighting.
The northwestern province is nearly completely under the control ofanti-government forces, predominantly Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a groupled by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria affiliate.
While Turkey has called for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,Russia has provided armed support to the regime and controls the airspaceof northern Syria.