MESOP NEWS TURKEY’S MILITARY ADVANCE IN AFRIN SYRIA : Turkey – We Will Crush Kurdish Militia in Afrin

By Scott Lucas – eaworldview – 23 Jan 2018 – Turkish and rebel forces advanced in the Kurdish canton of Afrin in northwest Syria on Monday, as Ankara vowed to crush the Kurdish militia YPG. On the fourth day of the offensive, Turkey continued to shell the hilly area while Turkish and Free Syrian Army fighters captured the high position of Mount Bursaya (see map), taking YPG fortifications and artillery.Pro-opposition activists said YPG used the hilltop to shell both the opposition-held town of Azaz and the Turkish town of Kilis.The Turkish military reported its first casualty in the offensive, the death of a soldier amid clashes southeast of the Turkish village of Gülbaba, just across the Syrian border.

“There’s no stepping back from Afrin,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in a speech in Ankara.The US-supported, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces hit back in a statement that Afrin would be a “quagmire from which the Turkish army will only exit after suffering great losses”.At the request of France, senior UN officials briefed the Security Council behind closed doors on both the Afrin situation, and on the pro-Assad assaults on opposition-held Idlib Province in northwest Syria and the Damascus suburbs.French UN Ambassador Francois Delattre said after the meeting, “France calls on Turkey for restraint in the volatile environment that we all know in Syria.”

The Assad regime, Iran, the US, and Egypt have all criticized the Turkish-rebel offensive; however, Russia remained muted in its response. Erdoğan said on Monday said he had a go-ahead from Moscow, the essential backer of the Assad regime and leading outside political inlfuence in the country: “We discussed this with our Russian friends, we have an agreement with them, and we also discussed it with other coalition forces and the United States.”

On Thursday, the day before launching the offensive, the Turkish military and intelligence chiefs were in Moscow for consultations with Russian colleagues.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the US has proposed working with Turkey and forces on the ground in Afrin to “see how we can stabilize this situation and meet Turkey’s legitimate concerns for their security”.However, Ankara has pushed the US aside. Erdoğan and other Turkish officials have indicated that the timing of the offensive was a response to reports of Washington’s plans to create a 30,000-strong border force, half of which to be drawn from the YPG-led SDF.

Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag told reporters after a Cabinet meeting: “If [the US] wants cooperation, we are ready for this cooperation. As the first step to take, they can stop arming terror groups and take back weapons already given.”Erdoğan chided the US in his Monday speech:Some, or America, are asking us about the duration. And I am asking America, “Was your timing determined in Afghanistan?”

When the job is done. We are not eager to stay. We know when to pull out. And we do not care to have permission from anyone to do this.

A US delegation is in Ankara on Tuesday for talks.

The delegation is led by the Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, Jonathan Cohen, and includes officials from the Department of Defense. It is part of a joint working group that meets periodically, but Turkish officials said discussions will include the Afrin offensive and the “struggle against terrorism”. www.mesop.de