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#Egypt condemns #Turkey’s ‘occupation’ of #Afrin 353,935 people have died 19,800 children are among the dead

March 20, 2018 By administrator

CAIRO – 19 March 2018: Egypt on Monday condemned Turkey’s “occupation” of northern Syria’s city of Afrin and the human rights violations carried out by Turkish troops in the city.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the Turkish military operation has violated civilians’ rights and forced them to flee the city.

On Sunday, Turkish forces and their Syrian rebel allies swept into Afrin, taking control of the town’s center after Kurdish YPG forces pulled out, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

Continuous violations of Syria’s sovereignty is “unacceptable”, the statement read, adding that such violations complicate the political situation, foil current conflict settlement efforts, and worsen the humanitarian crisis in the country.

The statement also reaffirmed Egypt’s support of a political solution in Syria, which would preserve the unity of the Syrian state and institutions.

On January 24, Egyptian Foreign Ministry Sameh Shoukry and then-U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stressed on the importance of coordinating efforts to support a political solution agreed upon by all parties to the crisis, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid.

Shoukry stressed the importance of supporting the aspirations of Syria’s people, protecting its national unity and preserving its institutions. He asserted Egypt’s efforts to defuse the crisis in Syria, especially the international resolutions in Geneva under U.N. auspices.

Turkey slammed a motion approved by the European Parliament on March 15 that calls for a halt to Ankara’s military offensive in the Afrin region, saying it demonstrated “clear support” for militants.

On January 20, Turkey launched the “Operation Olive Branch” military operation in Afrin to clear the city from the Syrian-Kurdish YPG militia that Turkey considers terrorists.

Hundreds of residents were seen fleeing the city of Afrin, with the Observatory reporting that more than 2,000 arrived in an area controlled by pro-regime forces.

Hundreds more were on the road, it said, after Turkish forces and their allies arrived to within less than two kilometers (one mile) of the city on March 10, sparking fears it could be besieged.

Syria’s conflict broke out in March 2011 with peaceful protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but a regime crackdown paved the way for a full-fledged war.

At least 353,935 people have died since, including more than 106,000 civilians, the Observatory said in March, providing a new overall death toll for the conflict. More than 19,800 children are among the dead, it said.

Source: https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/2/45677/Egypt-condemns-Turkey%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98occupation%E2%80%99-of-Afrin

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Afrin, Egypt, Invasion, Turkey

Syrian government forces enter Afrin to repel Turkish Invasion

February 22, 2018 By administrator

Syrian state television showed a convoy of pro-government fighters entering the Kurdish Afrin region in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) on Tuesday to help fend off a Turkish assault.

The fighters wearing camouflage fatigues waved weapons and Syrian flags from their vehicles as they crossed through a checkpoint that bore the insignia of a Kurdish security force.

“One Syria, one Syria!” some of them chante

“We have come to tell our people in Afrin that we are one,” said a fighter interviewed on state television, referring to the government stance that Syria must remain one country and internal partitions caused by the war must be eradicated.

State news agency SANA accused Turkish forces of shelling territory near the crossing where the “popular forces” entered Afrin.

Earlier on Tuesday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Russia had stepped in to block a deployment of pro-government forces in Afrin, where Ankara is seeking to destroy the Kurdish YPG militia.

Erdogan later said in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Damascus would face consequences if it struck a deal with the YPG and said the Afrin operation would continue, CNN Turk reported.

On Sunday, a Kurdish political official said Damascus had agreed to send Syrian troops into Afrin to help fend off the month-old offensive by Turkey and allied Syrian insurgents.

The Syrian government and the YPG have mostly avoided direct conflict during the war, but they espouse very different visions for Syria’s future. Each controls more ground than any other side in the conflict.

Turkey began its Afrin operation with allied Syrian fighters, seen as mercenary warriors for Turkey, last month against the YPG, which Ankara sees as a threat along its border with links to the Kurdish PKK insurgency at home.

Turkey is using YPG as pretext to invade the Syrian Kurdish region in order not allow Kurds to establish an autonomous region in Syrian Kurdistan, analysts say.

U.S. regards the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its powerful military wing YPG/YPJ, as key ally against Islamic State IS and the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria and has provided them with arms, air support as well as the military advisers. The YPG has seized swathes of Syria from IS.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Invasion, repel, Turkish

Report Syrian Government Forces Enter Afrin – YPG Representative

February 20, 2018 By administrator

YPG representative in Afrin Brusk Haseke told Sputnik that the Syrian government forces have entered Afrin besieged by the Turkish military. The Syrian armed forces, however, yet to confirm this information.

“Yes, this is true. Today the Syrian government army entered Afrin in order to defend the city from the Turkish Armed Forces and the Free Syrian Army jointly with the Kurdish forces of the YPG. The government forces have come to help the people of Afrin. We cannot report on the number of soldiers that entered Afrin. This is military information.”

At the same time, the Syrian state TV has shown a convoy, what it says are pro-government forces, entering Afrin.

The troops, wearing camouflage fatigues and waving weapons and Syrian flags from their vehicles are seen on the screen, Reuters said.

Meanwhile, the Syrian TV reports of the shelling of the Syrian government forces, which had entered Afrin by the Turkish military.

However, no official confirmation to this has followed from both — the Syrian and the Turkish sides.

Turkey’s Warning Against Entering Afrin

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said earlier in the day that Turkish army would encircle Afrin to speed up its operation, adding that possible deployment of Syrian government forces into the city had been “halted through our communications.”

The day before, a senior Kurdish official said that Syrian Kurdish forces and the country’s government had agreed on the deployment of Syrian army troops along border positions in the Afrin region to curb the Turkish campaign.

Later on, Syrian state television channel Ikhbariya reported that pro-Syrian government forces would enter Syria’s Afrin area “within hours.”

However, this information has been refuted by Brusk Haseke, who had called them false and fake news in his interview to Sputnik, saying that the Syrian government forces would not enter Afrin.

Commenting on reports, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said that if Syrian armed forces entered Afrin to support Kurdish militants, this would lead to a catastrophe, giving a green light to split the country.

International Reaction

Reacting to the recent developments in Syria, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned that “worse was ahead of us” if nothing is done in the war-torn country.

“We’re heading toward a humanitarian cataclysm” in Syria if nothing is done, Le Drian told French lawmakers.

As the minister stated, he would travel to Russia and Iran in the next few days to discuss the war raging in Syria.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Afrin, Invasion, Syria, Turkey

Syria: Afrin asks Russia to help halt Turkey’s invasion

February 5, 2018 By administrator

Stop Turkish invasion of Syria

Authorities in Afrin have called on global powers to halt Turkey’s invasion on the region as thousands of people take to the streets in the Syrian city in condemnation of Ankara’s incursion.

“We ask the Russian federation in particular to rescind its support for the Turkish state’s terrorism against the people of Afrin,” said Afrin’s local administration — the semi-autonomous government in power since 2013 – in a statement released on Sunday.

“It bears responsibility for the massacres the fascist Turkish state is carrying out against innocent civilians,” it added. The statement referred to Russia’s move of withdrawing its troops who were stationed in Afrin when Turkey launched its assault.

It also called on the United States, EU, United Nations Security Council and the US-led coalition to “immediately intervene to stop Turkey’s aggression.”

Turkey launched the so-called Operation Olive Branch in Syria’s Afrin on January 20 in a bid to eliminate the YPG, which Ankara views as a terror organization and the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Afrin, Invasion, Turkey

Donald Trump warns Turkey over Syria invasion: White House

January 25, 2018 By administrator

The US president has told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to rein in the offensive on Syria’s Kurdish enclave of Afrin, the White House says. Concerns the NATO allies may be brought into conflict are rising.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has again been urged to “de-escalate” his military assault on Afrin, a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria.

Following similar calls from other world leaders, US President Donald Trump spoke by phone to his Turkish counterpart on Wednesday, and called on the Ankara government to “limit its military action and avoid civilian casualties,” according to a White House statement.

Anti-American rhetoric

Trump also warned Erdogan about “the destructive and false” anti-American rhetoric which he said was emanating from Turkey, as the two NATO allies find themselves at odds over territory close to the Turkish border which is controlled by the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

Washington relies on the YPG, the major force within the alliance of Syrian Democratic Forces, to fight the “Islamic State” (IS) militant group in Syria.

Erdogan meanwhile accuses the YPG of being allied to a three-decade Kurdish insurgency in southern Turkey.

Together with aligned Syrian rebel fighters, Turkey began an air and ground operation in Syria’s Afrin district on Saturday to root out what Ankara says are Kurdish “terrorists” who are threatening security in the country.

The offensive has opened a new front in Syria’s multi-sided, seven-year war and complicated US efforts in Syria.

Amid rising tensions, Trump urged Turkey to “exercise caution and to avoid any actions that might risk conflict between Turkish and American forces.”

Erdogan urged Trump to halt Washington’s weapons support to the Kurdish militia, according to the White House.

Erdogan vows to press on

In separate comments, The Turkish leader wowed to extend the military operation to Manbij, a separate Kurdish-held enclave some 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Afrin, where some US forces are positioned alongside the SDF.

Kurdish leaders meanwhile have demanded that Washington rein in Turkey, and vowed to resist its cross-border operation.

Shervan Derwish, a spokesman for the Manbij Military Council, said his forces are on “full alert” in case Turkey moves on the city.

“We are in constant contact with coalition forces, who are conducting patrols on the front lines and aerial patrols — their troops are still in Manbij,” Derwish told the German news agency dpa by phone.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said in its latest death toll report that some 125 people were killed over the last five days in the Afrin region, among them Turkish-backed Syrian rebels.

Strong resistance

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that the advancing Turkish troops are facing stiff resistance in Afrin, while the SOHR reported Turkish airstrikes had been witnessed in nearly 20 villages.

On Wednesday evening, rockets fired from Syria killed two people and wounded 11 more in the Turkish border province of Kilis.

mm/se (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Invasion, Trump, Turkey

Kurds reportedly destroy five Turkish tanks in Syria’s Arfin

January 22, 2018 By administrator

A video has appeared on YouTube showing the Kurdish YPG militia launch an anti-tank guided missile at a Turkish Leopard tank as the Turkish Army advanced toward Afrin in an offensive against the Kurdish forces.

Citing the ANF News agency, Sputniknews.com reports that the tank was hit in the area of the village of Kurdo in the Bilbil district of the Syrian city of Afrin on Sunday morning.

The video has been posted on the YouTube channel of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

In a single day, Kurdish fighters destroyed five Turkish tanks in the Afrin area, ANF reported.

Two tanks were hit in the village of Diqmetash and two in the vicinity of the town of Tel-Rifat. It is in these areas that the fiercest battles are currently being fought between Kurds and the Turkish Army.

The Kurdish command reported that four Turkish soldiers and 10 pro-Turkish guerrillas were killed in the fighting in northwestern Syria.

“As a result of these clashes, 10 members of the gang were killed in different parts of the region, 20 bandits [members of the armed Syrian opposition] were wounded. In addition, four Turkish soldiers were killed and many were injured in clashes in Bilbil,” the YPG reported in a press release.

It also said that during the clashes three soldiers of the Kurdish militia were killed.

 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Invasion, Syria, Turkey

Turkey’s Invasion ground forces enter Syria’s Kurdish-held Afrin: State media

January 21, 2018 By administrator

Turkey says its military forces have crossed into Syria’s Kurdish enclave of Afrin. Ankara began an air assault to take the area, held by the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), on Saturday.

Turkish forces crossed the border into Syria’s Afrin district on Sunday, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has said.

At a news conference in Istanbul, he said Turkey’s military aimed to create a security zone some 30 kilometers (18 miles) inside the war-ravaged country.

The state-run Anadolu news agency also reported the arrival of Turkish forces in the enclave as part of an operation codenamed Olive Branch, adding that airstrikes and artillery shelling that targeted the area, which began on Saturday, were continuing.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he hoped the offensive would be completed in “a very short time.”

YPG denies reports

Turkey’s claims were immediately denied by a Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, spokesman, who said Turkish forces and their rebels tried to cross into the province but failed, after fierce clashes erupted.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported fighting between the two sides on the northern and western edges of Afrin, but said that Turkish troops had failed to advance.

Although Ankara has not released figures on the number of Turkish troops involved in the offensive, SOHR’s director Rami Abdurrahman said some 10,000 Syrian fighters have been readied.

The apparent ground assault comes a day after Turkey launched an air assault against the Syrian-Kurdish YPG militia, which controls the northwestern corner of Syria, and which Ankara regards as a terror group linked to a more than three-decade insurgency in its southeast.

Saturday’s airstrikes and artillery fire were backed by pro-Turkey Syrian rebels who were engaged in a “comprehensive” ground operation against the YPG, Andadolu said.

SOHR said six civilians, including a child, were killed in Saturday’s airstrikes on Afrin.

Rockets hit Kilis

Early on Sunday, four suspected YPG rockets struck the central-southern Turkish town of Kilis from across the Syrian border, the town’s governor said.

Governor Mehmet Tekinarslan said the rockets hit two houses and an office, slightly injuring a woman, before Turkish artillery returned fire.

“No one lost their life,” Tekinarslan was cited by the Dogan news agency as saying. “They can fire one rocket at us and we will fire 100 back. There is no need to worry.”

While Erdogan has vowed to crush the Kurdish militia, the YPG is the major force within the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces alliance, which is leading the fight against the “Islamic State” (IS) militant group in Syria.

The decision has sunk US-Turkey ties to new lows and forced other nations to urge an immediate end to the offensive.

“This fighting … must stop,” French Defense Minister Florence Parly told France 3 Television on Sunday, adding that the new conflict could “deter Kurdish forces who are at the side” of the international coalition battling IS.

France also called for United Nations action to help minimize the “humanitarian risks” as the fighting escalates in Syria.

“Ghouta, Idlib, Afrin — France asks for an urgent meeting of the Security Council,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Twitter.

The ministry said in a statement that Le Drian spoke to his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, by phone Sunday. He called on Turkish authorities to “act with restraint in a context where the humanitarian situation is deteriorating in several regions of Syria,” the statement said.

mm/jlw (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Invasion, Syria, Turkish

Turks celebrate 1964 napalm bombing of Cyprus

August 16, 2017 By administrator

By Uzay Bulut,

Cyprus is Turkish, after all. Turks can do whatever they want there. They can even celebrate dropping napalm on Greeks and slaughtering them.

On August 8, Muslim Turkish Cypriots and illegal settlers from Turkey celebrated the 53rd anniversary of Turkey’s napalm bombing of Greek Cypriot civilians in the Turkish-occupied enclave of Kokkina in Cyprus. Mustafa Akıncı, the president of the self-styled “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (TRNC), which is recognized only by Turkey, also participated in the celebrations.

In August 1964, Turkish warplanes dropped napalm bombs on Kokkina in the Tillyria peninsula, hitting residential areas and a hospital, and killing more than 50 people, including 19 civilians. Ten years later, in 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus and has occupied almost 40 percent of the island ever since.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece issued a note of condemnation regarding the celebrations:

“We are dismayed to note the celebrations of the Turkish Cypriot leadership, including Mr. Akinci himself, of the 53rd anniversary of the use of chemical weapons and dropping of napalm bombs by the Turkish air force on the Tillyria peninsula. This was the first use of banned chemical weapons in the history of our planet.

“Today, when the whole planet bows to the victims of wars and such hostile acts, the holding of and participation in such celebrations is an affront to international law, to the memory of the fallen, and to the whole of humanity.”

The Republic of Cyprus declared independence in 1960. Afterwards, Turkey escalated its preparations to invade the island, which included but were not limited to establishing a bridgehead at Kokkina in 1964 and smuggling arms and fighters from Turkey into the area in order to strengthen Turkish positions there.

According to the High Commission of the Republic of Cyprus in London,
“When in August 1964 the [Cypriot] Government attempted to contain the Kokkina bridgehead, Turkey’s air force bombed the National Guard and neighboring Greek villages with napalm and threatened to invade. The other major purpose served by the enclaves was the political and physical separation of the two communities.”

Another preparation for the occupation by Turkey was its disguised violent attacks against Turkish Cypriots to further escalate inter-communal conflicts and alienate Turkish-speaking Cypriots from Greek Cypriots.

General Sabri Yirmibeşoğlu, a Turkish army officer, for example, said in televised comments in 2010 that Turkey burned a ‎mosque during the Cyprus conflict “in order to foster civil resistance” against Greeks on the islandand that “The Turkish special warfare department has a rule to engage in acts of sabotage against respected values [of Turks] made to look as if they ‎were carried out by the enemy.”

The deadly military assault against Kokkina in 1964 is celebrated by many Turkish Cypriots and settlers from Turkey as the “8 August Erenköy Resistance Day.” Turks now call Kokkina “Erenköy,” Turkish for “the village of the [Islamic] saints.”

In 2014, for example, the community leader of Kato Pyrgos, Costas Michaelides, condemnedthe formal Turkish celebrations in Kokkina, describing them as a “disgrace.” “The memories are alive because the victims, those who survived, are here. The crosses [on the graves] are here. However, many years pass, 50 or 150, we will see this in our daily lives, because they remind us of this cowardly attack against the unarmed people of Tylliria,” he said.

The Turkish narrative does not deny the smuggling of arms and fighters to Cyprus in 1964; the problem is Turks do not view these acts as illegal activities or crimes against the Republic of Cyprus. They see them as “heroism.”

During the celebrations on August 8, Mehmet Kadı, the mayor of Yeni Erenköy (Yialousa), said:
“53 days ago, today, in August 1964, the villagers, students and our mujahideen [jihadists] struggled together, fought for this land and did not allow the enemy to enter here.”

The enemy that Kadı referred to is the Republic of Cyprus and Greek Cypriots, the natives of the island who still comprised the majority in the northern part of Cyprus back then.

The Turkish Cypriot Minister of Economy and Energy, Sunat Atun, also issued a statementregarding “the Erenkoy resistance” and referred to it as “an act of heroism.”

“Turkish Cypriot people engaged in powerful and honorable resistance in the face of the inhumane attacks by the dual of the Rum [ethnic Greeks] and Greece. About 500 students from Anatolia and a group of Turkish Cypriots from Britain started landing in Cyprus to defend their homeland when attacks against Turkish Cypriots escalated in 1964.”

Mustafa Arıkan, the head of the Erenköy Mujahedeen [Jihadists] Association, also announced that during the commemoration, “for the first time, family members of 28 martyrs were given plaques.”

On July 20, 1974, Turkey mounted a bloody invasion of the island. The second Turkish offensive, codenamed Attila 2, took place between August 14-18. The invasion was accompanied by the mass murder of Greek Cypriot civilians, including women, and infants, unlawful arrests and torture of Greek Cypriots, and rapes of Greek Cypriot children and women, among other atrocities.

Zenon Rossides, the then-Cyprus representative to the United Nations, sent a letter on 6 December 1974 to the UN Secretary General, which said in part that Turkey “launched a full scale aggressive attack against Cyprus, a small non-aligned and virtually defenseless country, possessing no air force, no navy and no army except for a small national guard. Thus, Turkey’s overwhelming military machine embarked upon an armed attack including napalm bombing of open towns and villages, wreaking destruction, setting forests on fire and spreading indiscriminate death and human suffering to the civilian population of the island.”

The greatest consequence of the invasion was that Turkey changed the demographic structure of the northern part of the island, terrorizing around 200,000 indigenous Greek Cypriot majority population (more than one-third of the population) into fleeing to the southern part of the island.  It is estimated that more than 100,000 Turkish settlers have been implanted in northern Cyprus since then. Lands and houses belonging to Greek Cypriots were then distributed to Turkish Cypriots and to Turks brought from Turkey to settle in those areas.

Turkish supremacists act so blatantly in Cyprus because they claim Cyprus is a Turkish island. Thus, bringing in Turkish fighters to Cyprus to kill Greek Cypriots, importing tens of thousands of settlers from Turkey, deploying around 40,000 Turkish soldiers there, forcibly changing the demographics of the island, seizing the homes and other property of Greek Cypriots, and wiping out the island’s historic Hellenic and Christian identity through the destruction of its cultural heritage are all legitimate acts according to the Turkish narrative.

Cyprus is Turkish, after

all. Turks can do whatever they want there. They can even celebrate dropping napalm on and slaughtering Greeks.
Employing Orwellian rhetoric, Turkey calls the military invasion of Cyprus “a peace operation.” In 1974, Kemalists and Islamists of all political parties supported the invasion of Cyprus. Moreover, Turkey does not recognize Cyprus as a Greek island or even as “a nation.”

According to the official website of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Cyprus has never been a Greek Island. It is both useful and important to keep in mind that there has never been in Cyprus a ‘Cypriot nation’ due to the distinct national, religious and cultural characteristics of each ethnic people who, in addition, speak different languages.”

The Turkish ministry cannot be more wrong. Never until the Turkish invasion in 1974 did the northern part of the island have a Turkish majority. Both the north and south of the island were majority-Greek and majority-Christian until 1974. “Cyprus has been a part of the Greek world as far back as can be attested by recorded history,” writes the author Constantine Tzanos.

“After the collapse of the Byzantine Empire and the defeat of the Venetians, it fell to Ottoman rule from 1571 to 1878. In 1878 it was placed under British administration, was annexed by Britain in 1914, and in 1925 became a British colony.”

However, the Cyprus question has been one of the key aspects of the Turkish foreign policy for a very long time. Actually, Cyprus has never ceased to be a “national cause” for Turks ever since the Ottomans first invaded it in 1571. A Muslim sovereign is not allowed to relinquish land once it has been conquered. And they can even celebrate their war crimes and murders.

Showing no regard for the sufferings of Greek Cypriots, many Turkish Cypriots and their leaders – including Mustafa Akıncı – have celebrated the deadly assaults on their Greek neighbors. But a community leader who genuinely aims for a peaceful resolution and coexistence in Cyprus would condemn the use of napalm bombs on unarmed civilians and the destruction of that part of the island, and would commemorate the Greek Cypriot victims as well.

Sadly, Turkish Cypriots’ celebrations of the brutal warfare against Greek Cypriot civilians have discredited all of their erstwhile statements that they support a peaceful resolution of the conflict in the island and justice for all its inhabitants.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/20882

 

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Cyprus, Invasion, Turkish

Iraq requests U.N. Security Council emergency meeting on Turkish troops in north

October 6, 2016 By administrator

(Reuters Report) Iraq has requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the presence of Turkish troops on its territory as a dispute with Ankara escalates.

Turkey’s parliament voted last week to extend the deployment of an estimated 2,000 troops across northern Iraq by a year to combat “terrorist organizations” – a likely reference to Kurdish rebels as well as Islamic State.

Iraq condemned the vote, and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi warned Turkey risked triggering a regional war. On Wednesday, Ankara and Baghdad each summoned the other’s ambassador in protest at remarks from the other camp.

“The Iraqi foreign ministry has presented a request for an emergency meeting of the Security Council to discuss the Turkish violation of Iraq’s territory and interference in its internal affairs,” said a statement on the ministry’s website.

Turkey says its military is in Iraq at the invitation of Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish regional government, with which Ankara maintains solid ties. Baghdad says no such invitation was ever issued.

Most of the Turkish troops are at a base in Bashiqa, north of Mosul and close to Turkey’s border, where they are helping to train Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga and Sunni fighters.

Tensions between Baghdad and Ankara have risen with expectations of an offensive by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces to retake Mosul, the last major Iraqi city under Islamic State control, captured by the militants two years ago.

Turkey has said the campaign will send a wave of refugees over its border, and potentially on to Europe.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-turkey-idUSKCN1260Z2

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Invasion, Iraq, Turkey, UN Security Council

Turkey Conspired with ISIS in its Deceptive Invasion of Syria

September 7, 2016 By administrator

turkish-isis-free-army

Photo by gagrulenet

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN

Syria has been the hub of shifting international military and political intrigues since the start of the ‘civil war’ in 2011. The diverse conflicting sides include: Hezbollah, Iran, Islamic State (ISIS), Israel, Jordan, Kurdish fighters, Lebanon, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, assorted terrorists from around the world, Syria, Syrian opposition groups, Turkey, the United States, and other NATO states.

The latest ominous development is the Turkish invasion of the Syrian border town Jarablus, which had been occupied by ISIS. However, contrary to Turkish propaganda, Turkey’s military did not invade Syria to chase out ISIS, and the U.S. Air Force did not drop any bombs on Jarablus to pave the way for the advancing Turkish troops, according to David Phillips, Director of the Program on Peace-Building and Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights. Phillips had served as a Senior Adviser and Foreign Affairs Expert to the U.S. Department of State under Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama.

Turkey’s actual plans were to prevent further inroads into North-West Syria by Kurdish YPG fighters (People’s Protection Forces) who have been the most reliable military allies of the United States in countering ISIS, while Erdogan calls the YPG ‘terrorists.’

Phillips revealed in his Huffington Post article that “Turkish-backed Islamists never engaged ISIS in the so-called battle for Jarablus. Before invading, Ankara made a deal with the Islamic State. Rather than resist, ISIS forces simply changed into FSA [Free Syrian Army] uniforms. Jarablus was ‘liberated’ from ISIS with barely a shot.” ISIS had evacuated all civilians from Jarablus prior to the Turkish invasion because it did not “want civilians to identify newly clad FSA members as hard core ISIS fighters,” Phillips wrote.

“It is not surprising that Erdogan and ISIS made a deal. ISIS and Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) are ideologically aligned,” Phillips asserted, since “they are both branches of the Muslim Brotherhood. Despite official denials, there is a mountain of evidence that Turkey provided weapons, money, and logistical support to Islamists in Syria beginning in 2014. Turkey also underwrote the Islamic State by transporting its oil and selling it on the international market. About 500 Islamist fighters are still transiting from Turkey to Syria each month.”

Turkish leaders have made no secret of their true aim. Erdogan announced that his objective is to go after YPG and “terror groups that threaten our country.” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu pledged that Ankara would “do what is necessary” to keep the Kurdish fighters away from the Turkish border.

Washington is not pleased with Turkey’s misdirected military actions in Northern Syria. Senior Pentagon official Brett McGurk told CNN that “the Turks never cared about Jarablus until the Kurds wanted to get there.” McGurk called the Turkish attacks on Kurdish fighters “unacceptable and a source of deep concern” for the United States.

The Editor of Veterans Today was also highly critical of the Turkish invasion of Syria as reflected in his cynical explanation: “Turkish troops who had been in Syria for years dressed up as ‘ISIS’ have simply gone home to Turkey, had a good wash and shave, put back on their Turkish uniforms then returned to Syria.”

Saadeddine Somaa, a Syrian Arab militant who joined the Turkish incursion into Syria, expressed to The New York Times his disappointment for being misled into fighting the Kurds instead of ISIS and the Syrian government. “Everyone is pursuing their own interests, not Syria’s,” Somaa complained.

The New York Times article stressed that due to in-fighting, the rebel groups “risk reinforcing criticism that they are Turkish and American proxies at best, de facto allies of ISIS at worst.” Furthermore, “Turkish airstrikes had killed 35 civilians in Kurdish-held villages. And there was a video online showing rebels kicking prisoners from the Kurdish-led militias.” Some of the fighters accompanying the Turkish troops’ incursion into Syria, such as members of Nooredine al-Zinki, “were accused of having ties to Qaeda-linked groups” and were “widely condemned when a group of its fighters videotaped themselves beheading a young prisoner…. Its participation in the Jarablus operation was an indication that it has not been completely shunned, at least by Turkey.”

David Phillips ended his revealing Huffington Post article with an ominous prediction: “Syria will be Erdogan’s Waterloo. The U.S. Government must not be tethered to Turkey’s sinking ship.”

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Invasion, ISIS, Syria, Turkey

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