Turkish-backed Terrorist Syrian rebels have taken total control of the centre of Afrin, a Kurdish-majority city in northern Syria, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said.
“Units of the Terrorist Free Syrian Army, which are backed by Turkish armed forces, took control of the centre of Afrin this morning at 8.30am (0530 GMT),” Erdoğan said, adding that de-mining operations were under way.
Taking Afrin has been the main objective of Turkey’s Operation Olive Branch, a ground and air offensive launched on 20 January with the aim of ousting the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia group.
However, a senior Syrian Kurdish official denied Turkey’s claim to have captured the city, saying fighting was continuing. Hadia Yousef told the Associated Press the Kurdish militia had evacuated civilians because of “massacres” by Turkish and allied forces.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Turkish-backed forces had taken control of half the town, with heavy fighting still under way.
Tens of thousands have fled Afrin in recent days as Turkish forces and allied Syrian fighters have advanced. Erdoğan said on Sunday that a “large number” of Kurdish fighters had “fled with their tails between their legs”. He said Turkish special forces had been deployed in the city.
The Turkish military also released a statement on Sunday saying the city centre was under control. “Search operations to locate mines and other explosives are under way,” it said.
The military posted a video on Twitter of a soldier raising a Turkish flag on a balcony. “Now the Turkish flag will fly over there! The flag of the Free Syrian Army will fly over there!” said Erdoğan, who was speaking at a ceremony marking the battle to open the Dardanelles during the first world war.
As the Turkish operation intensified, more than 200,000 civilians fled the Kurdish-majority city in less than three days and dozens have been killed in the area, according to the Syrian Observatory.
The monitor said on Sunday that more than 1,500 Kurdish fighters had been killed in the two-month assault by Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels on Afrin. Most died in airstrikes and artillery fire, the group said, adding that more than 400 pro-Ankara rebels had been killed since 20 January.
Turkish forces and their Syrian rebel allies damaged and tore down a statue in the centre of Afrin on Sunday, a statement on a WhatsApp group run by the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces said, citing the Afrin media centre.
The statue was of the blacksmith Kawa, a central figure in a Kurdish legend about the new year celebration of Nawruz. The statement said it was the “first blatant violation of Kurdish people’s culture and history since the takeover of Afrin”.
Ankara sees the YPG as a Syrian offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency in Turkey since 1984.
Washington has provided weapons to the YPG, which it sees as a key ally in the fight against jihadists in Syria and Turkey, with Ankara’s military operation raising tensions between the two Nato allies.
According to figures released by the Turkish army, 46 Turkish soldiers have been killed since the start of the Afrin offensive.
Afrin is one of several fronts in the Syrian war that has left 350,00 people dead and millions displaced since 2011.
Turkey’s operation on Cyprus in 1974 is completely legal:
(1) Till now, there is NO sanction applied on Turkey due to 1974 Cyprus war
If a country invades another one, UN imposes sanctions on that country. Iraq invaded Kuwait, and UN imposed sanctions on Iraq. Turkey did not invade Cyprus, hence UN did not impose any sanction on Turkey!
(2) There is no UN Security Council resolution that calls the Turkey’s 1974 action as “invasion”!
(3) The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)(29.07.1974, Resolution 573): “The Turkish military INTERVENTION was the exercise of a RIGHT EMANATING FROM AN INTERNATIONAL TREATY and the fulfilment of a LEGAL and MORAL obligation.”
(4) Greece’s Athens Court of Appeals (21.03.1979; Case No: 2658/79): “The Turkish military INTERVENTION in Cyprus, which was carried out in accordance with the Zurich and London Accords, was LEGAL. Turkey, as one of the Guarantor Powers, had the right to fulfill her obligations. The real culprits . . . are the Greek officers who engineered and staged a coup and prepared the conditions for this INTERVENTION.” Note: Just after 5 years later than 1974, in 1979, Greece’s Highest Court decided Turkish military intervention is legal without making any difference between 1st and 2nd military operation!
(5) Makarios (1ST PRESIDENT OF CYPRUS) (the UN Security CouncilSpeech, 19 July 1974):
MAKARIOS: “CYPRUS WAS INVADED BY GREECE”. Sound record of the speech:http://www.cypnet.co.uk/ncyprus/…
(6) Turkey acted on Cyprus via Art. IV(2) Treaty of Guarantee (“In the event of a breach of the provisions of the present treaty, Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom undertake to consult together with respect to the representations or measures necessary to ensure observance of those provisions. IN SO FAR AS COMMON OR CONCERTED ACTION MAY NOT PROVE POSSIBLE, EACH of the three GUARANTEEING POWERs reserves THE RIGHT TO TAKE ACTION with the sole aim of re-establishing the state of affairs created by the present Treaty.”), hence in compatible with Art. 2(4) UN Charter
Don’t tell me murder and occupation is legal !
Authoritative figures for casualties during the two- phased military operation were not published; available estimates listed Greek Cypriot losses at 6,000 dead and Turkish losses at 1,500 dead and 2,000 wounded.
The Turkish invasion resulted in the capture of approximately 40% of the island. The ceasefire line from August 1974 became the United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus and is commonly referred to as the Green Line.
Around 150,000 people (amounting to more than one quarter of the total population of Cyprus, and to one third of its Greek Cypriot population) were expelled from the occupied northern part of the island, where Greek Cypriots constituted 80% of the population. A little over a year later in 1975, roughly 60,000 Turkish Cypriots, amounting to half the Turkish Cypriot population,[39][not in citation given] were displaced from the south to the north.[40] The Turkish invasion ended in the partition of Cyprus along the UN-monitored Green Line, which still divides Cyprus, and the formation of a de facto autonomous Turkish Cypriot administration in the north. In 1983 the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) declared independence, although Turkey is the only country that recognizes it.[41] The international community considers the TRNC’s territory as Turkish-occupied territory of the Republic of Cyprus.[42] The occupation is viewed as illegal under international law, amounting to illegal occupation of European Union territory since Cyprus became its member.[43]