MESOPOTAMIA NEWS UPDATE : MANBIJ TODAY (SYRIA – KURDISTAN ) / SALIH MUSLIM STATEMENT
No Syrian government forces inside Manbij town, but are deployed nearby: PYD – Salih Muslim, a senior Kurdish politician and co-chair of the Diplomatic Committee of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), 2018.
QAMISHLO, Syrian Kurdistan,— A senior Kurdish politician and co-chair of the Diplomatic Committee of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) Salih Muslim said on Friday that there are no Syrian government forces in Manbij town, but are deployed around it.Salih Muslim told NRT TV by phone that regime units will operate on the outskirts in cooperation with the Manbij Military Council, which will remain in control of the center of town.
“The reports that the Syrian government forces entered the city are not true. No Syrian government force is in Manbij right now and they will not be,” Muslim said in the phone call.
Regarding Washington’s decision to pull its troops out of Syrian Kurdistan, Muslim said that that they are not waiting on the US for anything and that US forces are busy with their withdrawal operation.The Syrian army said it entered Manbij for the first time in years on Friday morning after Kurdish YPG fighters urged Damascus to protect the town from the threat of Turkish attacks.The U.S.-led coalition has denied that there were changes to the military deployment in Syria’s Kurdish-held Manbij, refuting the Syrian government’s account that its troops have entered the town. The coalition said that the Syrian government announcement was “incorrect.”
The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) have invited on Syrian government troops on Friday to deploy alongside their own forces in the north to help counter a threatened Turkish offensive.
“We invite the Syrian government forces to assert control over the areas our forces have withdrawn from, in particularly Manbij, and to protect these areas against a Turkish invasion,” the Kurdish group said in a tweet.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that Syria was running a “psychological” operation in the northern city of Manbij, state-run Anadolu agency reported.
“Turkey’s goal is to teach YPG/PKK terror group a lesson, and we’re determined to make it happen,” said Erdogan on a number of unverified reports that Syrian regime troops were headed to Manbij, Syria.Erdogan told reporters that if Kurdish groups exited from Syria, there is “no other job” left to Turkey, adding that Turkey was against the partitioning of Syria.
Turkey said Syrian Kurds “don’t have the right” to seek regime help but Russia, the main foreign player in Syria since it intervened to rescue Assad in 2015, hailed the latest development.
In 2016, and after months of fighting against the Islamic State IS group, the Kurdish-led forces have seized full control of the Kurdish majority Manbij city near the Turkish border from Islamic jihadists. Turkey-backed Syrian mercenary fighters have been moving to the outskirts of Manbij and the Turkish army continues to dispatch tanks, artillery and other equipment to the border and an area administered by Turkey in Syrian Kurdistan (northwestern Syria), according to Turkish media reports.