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Turkey runs informer network in Austria to target critics: MP

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Austrian lawmaker from the Austrian Greens Peter Pilz (File photo).

A senior Austrian opposition lawmaker has accused Turkey of running an informer network via its embassy in Vienna aimed at targeting the critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and promoting his policies.

On Tuesday, Peter Pilz, from the Austrian Greens party, said at a news conference that he had sent documents regarding the activities of the network, run by the umbrella group ATIB, to the police.

The ATIB is headed by the religion attaché at Turkey’s embassy, Fatih Mehmet Karadas, and oversees the activities of dozens of mosques across Austria.

“The ATIB umbrella group is an instrument of hard, ruthless and, in my view, legally unacceptable Turkish government politics in Austria,” Pilz told a news conference.

Pilz noted that the Turkish government sends imams to work for the ATIB to collect information in particular about followers of exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Erdogan has accused of plotting an attempted coup in Turkey last July.

Gulen denies any involvement in the abortive coup, which claimed the lives of at least 240 people. However, the Turkish government has arrested tens of thousands of people over suspected ties with the US-based cleric.

The umbrella organization also monitors Turkish Kurds, Turkish opposition politicians and journalists in Austria, Pilz added.

Responding to the comments by the Austrian lawmaker, the Turkish government and the ATIB issued separate statements, denying the accusations.

“We absolutely reject these allegations. We urge Austrian officials to act with reason and to refrain from statements that would harm Turkish-Austrian relations and the peace of the Turkish community in Austria,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced in a statement.

In another statement, the ATIB said that as an Austrian body it did not tolerate any foreign interference.

Austria’s Chancellery and Interior Ministry said their experts are examining the matter.

In a similar case last month, Germany’s domestic spy agency launched a probe into possible spying by Turkish clerics following a complaint by a German Green politician.

Last week, the Turkish embassy informed the Austrian Foreign Ministry that its religion attaché would end his activities in Vienna “soon,” without providing a reason.

In a Sunday interview, Karadas told an Austrian newspaper that ATIB does not oversee the people’s private lives, but said it has a duty to ensure that the people of Turkish origin in Austria are not “radicalized” by Gulen.

“That’s why it is legitimate for us to do research and deliver reports in order to protect our fellow citizens and to protect the Austrian people,” Karadas said.

Gulen denies any involvement in last summer’s coup attempt.

Turkey wide-ranging crackdown following the coup has been criticized by Austria and other EU nations.

Turkish-Armenian photographer to open 2017 Nuremberg festival

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Ara Guler, a prominent Turkish-Armenian photographer from Istanbul, is going to conduct the opening of this year’s Nuremberg Festival of Turkish-German movies.
Guler will be honored with a medal during the cultural event to be held in the city’s Tafelhalle Theater, the newspaper Hurriyet reports.
A movie dedicated to artist, “Ara Guler, Legend of Istanbul”, will be screened as part of the festival.

Turkey: The Last Armenian Woman in a Once-Christian Town

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Prior to the Armenian genocide of 1915, the Turkish southeastern town of Derik used to be an important center for Armenian and Assyrian/Syriac Christians.  Today, only one Armenian woman remains: Yursalin Demirci.

The Kurdish news site Şûjin recently covered her story. The Armenians of Derik were first subject to massacres and deportations in 1915. The remnant Armenians emigrated from Derik in later years due to various pressures. Because of these reasons, there is no longer an Armenian community in the town. The doors of the Surp (Saint) Kevrok Armenian Church were not opened at Christmas this year. And the church bell no longer rings.

“I miss the old days,” said Yursalin. “But I have got used to the fact that there is no one left. We were born here, we grew up here and we do not want to leave our lands. Fifty years ago, when the church bell rang, the church became filled with people. I hope these days will return.”

Yursalin and her husband are the only remaining Christian couple in the town. “In Christianity, couples marry at church. But as there was no Christian priest left in the town back then, I had to marry at home.

“I am proud of being an Armenian. I have never given up on my religious faith. Our neighbors sometimes tell me to do Salah [five times daily Islamic prayers]. I do not know how to do it. … The Muslim religion is beautiful. So is Christianity. If you do not leave your faith, we don’t leave ours either.”

The city of Mardin, where Derik is also located, was for centuries a part of the Kingdom of Assyria.  In the Roman period, the city itself was known as Marida (Merida), from a Syriac/Neo-Aramaic name meaning “fortress”. Marida, the center for Episcopal Sees of several Armenian, Assyrian, Syriac and Chaldean churches, fell to the Seljuk Turks led by Alp Arslan after the Battle of Manzikert in the 11th century.

Professor Peter Fraser Purton writes in his book, “A History of the Early Medieval Siege, C. 450-1220”:

“In 1064, the Armenian city of Ani [in the present-day Turkish city of Kars on the Turkey-Armenia border]  situated on a step hill, fell to the Turks of Alp Arslan. [Historian]Aristakes tells [us] that this was after a section of the wall had been demolished with a catapult… A sudden collapse of a stretch of wall permitted the Turks to storm Ani.

“Following the Battle of Manzikert, Turkish forces took numerous towns: Erzerum (formerly Theodosiopolis), Diyarbakir (Amida), Mardin (Marida), Malatya (Melitene) and many others.”

The process of annihilation of indigenous Christian civilization in the region took centuries. Today, some Turkish authorities proudly declare that Turkey is 99 % Muslim. Before the 1915 genocide, however, Ottoman Turkey still had sizable Christian communities.

“Derik had in 1914 an Armenian population of 1782,” wrote Professor Raymond Kevorkian in his book “The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History”.

“The presiding judge of the court-martial in Diyarbekir, Tevfik Bey, who had just finished dealing with the Armenians of Viransehir, applied the usual procedures. From 20 to 30 June, 1915, he first eliminated the men in small groups, then turned to the women and children, who were deported and massacred a short distance from the town.”

According to the French Dominican monk, Jacques Rhétoré, in Mardin province, there were nearly 75,000 Christians of all denominations. During the massacres, nearly 48,000—or 64 percent—disappeared.

Mass murders were followed by the plunder of the Armenians’ property. Professor Kevorkian writes that the plundering of Armenians’ houses in Mardin was so widespread that it “left the city looking like a construction site. Many people were hard at work digging up the grounds around or inside the Armenians’ houses in a quest for hidden treasure. The myth of the Armenians’ gold, which is still alive and well today, excited people’s lust for gain.”

Just like the Islamic State (ISIS) is doing today in Iraq and Syria, trafficking and raping women were also commonplace:  “On 15 August 1915, for the first time in Mardin, a public sale of young Armenian women was organized. Buyers had to pay from one to three Turkish pounds per head, depending on the beauty and age of the female on offer.”

On June 10, 1915, Ottoman forces began a reign of terror over Armenians and other Christians in Mardin.David Gaunt, a professor of history, describes, in a comprehensive article in the Armenian Weekly, the night of June 10, which saw  the first wave of the death march of a group of 400 leading Christian figures in the city – Armenians, [Catholic] Syriacs, Chaldeans, and Protestants, who had been imprisoned during the previous week on trumped-up charges.

“At the fall of darkness, the soldiers… called out the names of the prisoners one by one, and they tied them with ropes so that they could not flee… Then those who were thought to be Armenians were taken from the others. Rings were pressed around their necks and chains around their wrists. In this way they were bound, drawn, and chained for several hours… After having arranged the men in rows, they forced them out through the prison gates. Above them weapons and swords shined. The prisoners were kept totally silent. And a town crier cried out, ‘The Christian residents who leave their houses will be amputated and put together with their co-religionists.’

“When they passed the Muslim quarter, the women came out and joked. They insulted the prisoners. Children threw stones. When the prisoners came to the Christian quarter, the residents could not go out to talk or say farewell. Many stood by the railings on their roofs and wept, praying to God. … The Christians shuffled in silence like pupils on their way to school. They made no sound.

Source: https://pjmedia.com/blog/turkey-the-last-armenian-woman-in-a-once-christian-town/

Russia outraged by award for photo of Turkey ambassador killing

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The Russian Embassy in Ankara on Feb. 14 expressed anger over the awarding of the prestigious World Press Photo Award for an image of an off-duty Turkish policeman assassinating the Russian envoy to Turkey last year, the Hurriyet Daily News reports. 

The embassy, whose ambassador Andrey Karlov was shot dead in the Dec. 19 killing, said the decision by the jury showed a “complete degradation of ethics and moral values.”

“Propaganda of the horror of terrorism is unacceptable,” it said in a statement on its official Facebook page.

The famous image was taken by Burhan Özbilici, a photographer for the Associated Press, who stood his ground as 22-year-old policeman Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş killed Karlov at the opening of an Ankara exhibition.

Jurors commended the courage of the photographer and symbolic resonance of the picture but the choice split the jury, with its president Stuart Franklin opposing the choice.

“Placing the photograph on this high pedestal is an invitation to those contemplating such staged spectaculars,” Franklin wrote in the Guardian.

The head of the foreign affairs committee of the Russian senate Konstantin Kosachev said the choice was “on the edge of morality” and asked “how many more terrorists could be inspired by this photo,” RIA Novosti reported.

Altıntaş was killed at the scene by Turkish security forces.

Authorities claimed that he could be part of the Gülen network led by the U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gülen, who Ankara blames for the failed July 15, 2016 coup attempt. Russia, which sent an investigation team to Ankara after the killing, has yet to back this conclusion.

The street in Ankara where the embassy is located was recently renamed after Karlov.

Council of Europe: Urgent measures needed to restore freedom of expression in Turkey

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The space for democratic debate in Turkey has shrunk alarmingly following increased judicial harassment of large strata of society, says Memorandum on freedom of expression and media freedom in Turkey.

The Memorandum has been published by Nils Muižnieks, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights based on the findings of two visits to the country that he conducted in April and September 2016.

“This deterioration came about in a very difficult context, but neither the attempted coup, nor other terrorist threats faced by Turkey can justify measures that infringe media freedom and disavow the rule of law to such an extent. The authorities should urgently change course by overhauling criminal legislation and practice, re-develop judicial independence and reaffirm their commitment to protect free speech” said Nils Muižnieks.

The Commissioner regrets that tangible progress concerning media freedom and freedom of expression which was painstakingly achieved by Turkey in co-operation with the Council of Europe, was halted and reversed in recent years, leading to an already alarming situation at the time of the Commissioner’s visit in April 2016.

“In particular, the overly wide application of the concepts of terrorist propaganda and support for a terrorist organisation, including to statements and persons that clearly do not incite violence, and its combination with an overuse of defamation, has put Turkey on a very dangerous path. Legitimate dissent and criticism of government policy is vilified and repressed, thus shrinking the scope of democratic public debate and polarising society.” This situation has significantly worsened under the on-going state of emergency which confers almost limitless discretionary powers to the Turkish executive to apply sweeping measures, including against the media and NGOs, without any evidentiary requirement, in the absence of judicial decisions and on the basis of vague criteria of alleged “connection” to a terrorist organization.

Media pluralism and independence, in particular, have been casualties of these developments characterised notably by the use of state resources to favour pro-governmental media, pervasive internet censorship, arbitrary exclusion of media and journalists, takeover or closure of media outlets critical to the authorities, violence and reprisals against media workers and the incarceration of over 150 journalists.

The Commissioner also underscores that this deterioration goes hand-in-hand with the erosion of the independence and impartiality of the Turkish judiciary. “While this problem affects the whole judiciary, it is in particular the role of the criminal judges of peace that is the most concerning, because these formations have transformed into an instrument of judicial harassment to stifle opposition and legitimate criticism and are now at the origin of some of the most obvious violations of the right to freedom of expression.”

The Commissioner urges the Turkish political leaders in the strongest possible terms to change course and to display the responsibility and tolerance expected in a democratic society. They must redevelop the political will necessary to tackle the very long-standing systemic issues suppressing freedom of expression, including on the Internet, and finally execute the numerous judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, some of which date decades back.

“A first step is to lift the current state of emergency and reverse the numerous unacceptable infringements of freedom of expression, and in particular media freedom and academic freedom, that it engendered. In addition, the Turkish authorities must completely overhaul the Criminal Code and the Anti-Terrorism Law so as to align law and practice with the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Beyond these deficiencies, it is crucial to change a judicial culture where judges and prosecutors interpret and apply laws in a way that consistently undermines freedom of expression and media freedom in Turkey.”

Turkey: Prominent journalist Hasan Cemal sentenced to jail for ‘terror propaganda’

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Hasan-cemal

Hasan-cemal, been doing journalism for 47 years

Damla Güler – ISTANBUL,

Prominent Turkish journalist Hasan Cemal has been convicted on charges of conducting “terror propaganda” due to a 2016 article regarding one of the leading figures of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), receiving a suspended sentence of one year, three months in jail.

In the second hearing of the case on Feb. 14 in which Cemal was charged with “conducting terror propaganda” and “praising crime and criminals,” an Istanbul Court of Serious Crimes sentenced him to a 15-month suspended prison term but acquitted him on a second charge.

The journalist was on trial for a July 11, 2016, column titled “Fehman Hüseyin.”

“I have been doing journalism for 47 years. For the first time, I am being accused like this for the articles and books that I have written,” Cemal said during his hearing. “I have never defended terror. I have never become a tool for terror propaganda. I have always defended peace. Journalism is not a crime. There is no law, freedom and democracy in a society where journalism is a crime.”

Cemal is separately on trial for terror-related charges allegedly committed while he was serving as a one-day editor-in-chief of daily Özgür Gündem as part of a solidarity campaign with the now-closed paper.

Özgür Gündem was shut down on Aug. 16, 2016, for allegedly conducting propaganda on behalf of the PKK and acting as the organization’s media organ.

During that case’s trial held on Feb. 14, prosecutors demanded Cemal’s imprisonment for up to eight years over charges of “carrying out terror propaganda.”

Along with Cemal, trials into more than 20 other journalists and intellectuals, including Ayşe Düzkan, Ragıp Duran, M. Ali Çelebi, Can Dündar and Necmiye Alpay, who participated in the solidarity campaign for Özgür Gündem, were also held at two Istanbul courts.

During the hearing of Alpay – a prominent Turkish linguist – prosecutors also gave their opinion and demanded her imprisonment for up to eight years on charges of carrying out “terror propaganda” and “releasing the organization’s press releases,” referring to the PKK.

The court adjourned hearings in the case into Alpay and several other defendants.

However, Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Central Board Committee member Çilem Küçükkeleş and publisher Cengiz Baysoy were given suspended sentences of one year, three months each in jail for conducting terrorist propaganda while participating in the Özgür Gündem solidarity campaign.

The pair was also assessed fines of 6,000 Turkish Liras each for “printing and publishing a statement from a terrorist organization.”

Source: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/prominent-journalist-hasan-cemal-sentenced-to-jail-for-terror-propaganda.aspx?pageID=238&nID=109730&NewsCatID=341

Genocide and “déjà vu!” Zoryan Institute’s response Turkish PM Çavuşoğlu

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Zoryan Institute issued a response to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu who suggested “a joint commission” after the decisions that have been made in France and Denmark concerning 1915.

Last week, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu assessed the decisions that French and Danish parliaments have made concerning 1915. As may be remembered, French Constitutional Council overturned the Armenian Genocide denial law and Danish parliament defined what happened in 1915 as tragic and “bloody events”. Claiming that French parliament’s decision was overturned because it “contradicts with freedom of expression”, Çavuşoğlu stated that politicians are doing this for the sake of “populism” and it is wrong. 

Claiming that central politicians in Europe started to engage in populism too much, Çavuşoğlu said: “They are losing votes and weak. They have no solution for their countries. The decision of the Danish parliament means a lot to us. It says, ‘Politicians shouldn’t be involved in historical events. Historians should assess them.’ Indeed, this is a good response to the ones who want to abuse history. Thus, we thank the Danish parliament.”

Çavuşoğlu once again said that a joint history commission should be formed and added: “We have been saying to Armenia, ‘If you are confident, let’s form a joint commission. Scientists from other countries would join it. Every one opens their archives and we are ready to accept any revelation.’ However, Armenia hasn’t approved it so far.” He also said that Armenian lobbies in abroad are cooperating with the ones who are against Turkey and claimed that they are working with “Gulenists” and other enemies of Turkey. Çavuşoğlu repeatedly accused Armenians of distorting the history.

After these statements, Canada-based Zoryan Institute issued a response to Çavuşoğlu, titled “déjà vu all over again”.

Here is the full text of Zoryan Institute’s response:

“As they say, “This is déjà vu all over again.”

Calls for Armenia to set up a joint commission to study the events of 1915 have become the modus operandi for the Turkish government for years. Mr. Çavuşoğlu’s recent statement merely echoes that of his predecessors, former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in 2014 when he was the Prime Minister. Every year, a few months before April 24, when resolutions appear before government bodies around the world, especially the US Congress, the high-ranking officials of Turkey make the same call. They claim to want to study those events to find out what really happened. This is nothing but a public relations stratagem to make it appear that Turkey is open-minded and willing to normalize relations with Armenia.

Such calls ignore the fact that in 2003, the Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission (“TARC”) at the time requested The International Center for Transitional Justice to examine the events of 1915 as a case of genocide. The ICTJ issued its finding that “the Events, viewed collectively, can thus be said to include all of the elements of the crime of genocide as defined in the Convention, and legal scholars as well as historians, politicians, journalists and other people would be justified in continuing to so describe them.” The Turkish members of the Commission rejected this finding and broke TARC apart.

In 2010, the United States, Switzerland, and other countries tried to broker the signing of protocols between Turkey and Armenia, whose border between them is closed, and who do not have diplomatic relations with one another. Despite the signing with much fanfare in Switzerland, the Turkish government has refused to ratify the agreement to this day.

Renowned Turkish scholar, Prof. Taner Akçam of Clark University, published in the preface to his award-winning book, The Young Turks’ Crime against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire, after years of studying official documents from the German, Ottoman, and other archives, the following statement:

Far from conflicting with one another, the sources are in fact complementary: they tell the same story but from different points of view… Taken in their entirety, Ottoman and Western archives jointly confirm that the ruling party CUP did deliberately implement a policy of ethnoreligious homogenization of Anatolia that aimed to destroy the Armenian population.

On June 2, 2016, Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, voted to declare the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 a genocide. The resolution was introduced by Cem Özdemir, a German parliamentarian of Turkish origin. There were at least one dozen other German deputies of Turkish origin who co-signed the Resolution with all parliamentarians voting in favor except one. The Turkish president, Mr. Erdogan, quickly denounced the resolution and recalled his Ambassador from Berlin. Part of the resolution reads as follows:

“By order of the Young Turk regime, the planned expulsion and extermination of over a million ethnic Armenians began in the Ottoman city of Constantinople on April 24, 1915. Their fate exemplifies the history of mass extermination, ethnic cleansing, expulsions, and yes, of genocides, which marked the 20th century in such a horrific way. We are aware of the uniqueness of the Holocaust, for which Germany bears guilt and responsibility.

The Bundestag regrets the inglorious role of the German Empire, which, as a principal ally of the Ottoman Empire, did not try to stop these crimes against humanity, despite explicit information regarding the organized expulsion and extermination of Armenians, including also from German diplomats and missionaries…. The German Empire bears partial complicity in the events.”

Turkey has already rejected the finding of the ICTJ, an internationally respected organization headed by the renowned Elie Wiesel. It has harassed and persecuted Prof. Taner Akçam. Now, given Germany’s acceptance and admission of its own complicity in the Armenian Genocide in collaboration with its political and military ally, the Ottoman Empire, why propose another joint commission? President Erdogan, himself, has publicly stated that he will never accept that Turkey committed genocide.

Under the circumstances, it is hard to believe Mr. Çavuşoğlu’s claim that “…we will accept any revelation.”

Rather than go through the sham of a joint commission, it would be more practical and constructive for Turkey to open its border with Armenia, establish normal diplomatic relations with its neighbor, stop harassing its scholars and writers and jailing its journalists, and accept the very well established historical record, and admit its guilt in the Armenian Genocide, as its own ally, Germany, has done.”

Trump new CIA Director Mike Pompeo’s recent visit to Turkey

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Erdogan-to-Trump-terroristPompeo’s visit was decided during a 45-minute telephone conversation between Presidents Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdogan late Tuesday, according to officials from Erdogan’s office. They briefed a group of journalists Wednesday on condition of anonymity in line with government regulations.

The officials said Pompeo would also discuss the issue of U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters, who the Turkish government considers to be terrorists because of their affiliation with outlawed Kurdish rebels in Turkey.

It was not surprising to see Turkish pro-government newspapers stressing that Ankara had delivered a warning that the U.S. should stop its cooperation with – or at least to limit the involvement of – the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the upcoming Raqqa offensive. But amid the standard coverage of the CIA chief’s first visit to Turkey, it is worth noting that some columnists were sticking to their conspiracy-minded rhetoric ongoing since the July 2016 coup attempt, openly putting the CIA at the center of alleged support for the movement of U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen.

As expected, new CIA Director Mike Pompeo’s recent visit has made the headlines of the Turkish press. Pompeo is not only the head of world’s most famous spy agency, but he is also a perfect example of U.S. President Donald Trump’s favorite kind of operator.

The extradition of Gülen was possibly one of the discussion topics between Pompeo and his Turkish counterparts. In this context, one lawmaker from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was quoted in the pro-government press as saying that Washington would never extradite Gülen but kill him and make it look like a suicide.

Turkey: new wave of purges, 4,500 officials sacked

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The Turkish authorities have sacked nearly 4,500 additional officials in connection with the purges launched after the coup attempt in July, according to a decree published in the Official Gazette.

Among the 4,464 people expelled from the civil service are 2,585 employees of the Ministry of Education, 893 of the gendarmerie, 10 of the Court of Cassation, 10 others of the High Electoral Council and 88 of the public television channel TRT.

Among the dismissed officials are also 330 academics from the Council of Higher Education (YÖK), including Ibrahim Kaboglu, one of the country’s most renowned constitutional law specialists.

These measures are taken within the framework of the state of emergency established after the July 15 coup attempt. The Turkish authorities accuse Fethullah Gülen, a preacher exiled in the United States, of having hatched the coup de force, which he denies.

Since the failed coup, more than 41,000 people have been arrested in Turkey and over 100,000 sacked or suspended, including teachers, police officers and magistrates.

Dozens of media and associations have also been closed and many journalists dismissed. On an unprecedented scale in Turkey, these purges are causing concern among Western partners in Ankara and human rights organizations, who fear that the state of emergency may serve as a pretext for suppressing any dissenting voice .

This concern is all the stronger as Turkey prepares for a referendum, presumably in April, on a constitutional revision greatly strengthening the powers of Mr. Erdogan. The opposition denounces an unfavorable context for democratic debate, in a state of emergency.

The Turkish authorities, for their part, affirm that these exceptional measures are necessary to eliminate the risks of sedition and to face the “terrorist” threat of the Islamic State (EI) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The country has been hit for more than a year and a half by an unprecedented wave of attacks, including strikes in Istanbul and Ankara and killing hundreds

Syria: Government soldiers, Turkish forces clash in Syria forces

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A monitoring group says Syrian government soldiers and Turkish forces have clashed near Syria’s border with Turkey, in a first such confrontation since Turkish forces entered Syrian territory without permission from Damascus.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday that clashes had erupted between the Syrian soldiers and their allies on the one side and the troops enlisted with Operation Euphrates Shield — the code name for Turkey’s military operation in Syria — on the other in the northwest of the city of al-Bab in Aleppo Province.

The Syrian military has started a determined push to liberate the city from the Takfiri terrorist group of Daesh and just yesterday flushed the terrorists out of two villages on the city’s southwestern edge.

Mohammad Abdullah, a political figure with Turkey-backed militant group known as the Free Syrian Army, said the recent clashes took place after the Turkish troops entered the city. He said the exchange of fire with Syrian soldiers had injured five Turkish forces and destroyed two of their armored vehicles.

Syrian sources, meanwhile, said the army had surrounded town of the Tadif, where Daesh has one of its biggest concentrations to the south of al-Bab.

The situation is tense in the province, whose capital city of the same name was liberated from the control of Takfiri terrorists by the Syrian military last December.

On Thursday, three Turkish forces were mistakenly slain during airstrikes by Russian fighter planes.

Turkey began a major military intervention in Syria in August last year, sending tanks and warplanes across the border in a purported mission to keep away Daesh as well as Kurdish armed groups.

Damascus has denounced the Turkish incursion as a breach of its sovereignty.