MESOP NEWS : Erdogan – We Will Drown America’s Kurdish-Led “Terror Army”

By Scott Lucas – 16 Jan 2018 – eaworldview –  Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has promised that Ankara’s military will defeat a US-backed, Kurdish-led border force inside Syria.

Erdoğan said on Monday in an address in Ankara, “What we are supposed to do is to drown this terror army before in comes into being.” He called the Kurdish militia “back-stabbers” who will point their weapons at the US in the future.Last weekend the US-led coalition confirmed reports that it is planning a 30,000-strong force along the Turkish and Iraqi borders. Half will be drawn from the Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish militia YPG, and half will be recruited.The coalition said there will be an initial group of about 230 trainees.

Erdoğan responded: A country we call an ally is insisting on forming a terror army on our borders. What can that terror army target but Turkey?…

This is what we have to say to all our allies: don’t get in between us and terrorist organizations, or we will not be responsible for the unwanted consequences. Don’t force us to bury in the ground those who are with terrorists. Our operations will continue until not a single terrorist remains along our borders, let alone 30,000.

Visiting Canada, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu added that “an army from YPG terrorists will only cause chaos in the region”: “The US must clarify which side it is on, whether it chooses to be with its allies or terror groups?”

Ankara considers the YPG, the militia of the Syrian Kurdistan Democratic Union Party (PYD), to be part of the Turkish Kurdish insurgency PKK.Continuing his threat, Erdoğan declared that a Turkish assault on the Kurdish canton of Afrin in northwest Syria “may start any time” and promised “operations into other regions will come after”.

Turkish forces have been shelling Afrin but so far there is no sign of a ground offensive. Last Friday, the Turkish President issued a one-week ultimatum for the YPG to withdraw from the Kurdish canton of Afrin in northwest Syria and from the city of Manbij in eastern Aleppo Province. If they remained, Erdoğan said, Turkish forces will overrun the areas to clear the “terrorists”.

Assad Regime, Iran, Russia Line Up Against Plan

A senior Syrian Kurdish politician, Fawza Youssef, said: To prevent any attack…there must be a deterrent force that protects the border between our areas and the others. And we must protect the gains we have liberated…. Until a political settlement is reached in Syria, these areas need protection. Now, there aren’t any guarantees. These forces are Syrian and will protect Syrian land from aggressors.

But the Assad regime and its backers Russia and Iran also lined up against the force.

The regime opposes a federal Syria in which Kurdish groups have an autonomous area. Senior advisors to Bashar al-Assad have threatened a showdown with the Syrian Democratic Forces, created by the US in autumn 2015 to push back the Islamic State in northern and eastern Syria.The Foreign Ministry denounced the new border force as a “blatant assault” on sovereignty and said any Syrian who joined the force is “a traitor”: “What the American administration has done comes in the context of its destructive policy in the region to fragment countries…and impede any solutions to the crises.”

Iran said the step was “doomed to failure”. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticized:  The actions that we see now show that the United States does not want to maintain the territorial integrity of Syria. Fundamentally, this means the breakup of a large territory along the border with Turkey and Iraq. www.mesop.de