US Calls on Turkey 'not to Attack Afrin’
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Spokesperson for the United States (US) State Department Heather Nauert has urged Turkey not to launch offensive into Afrin.
In response to a question posed, “Turkey also looks like it is about to invade the Kurdish canton of Afrin in the West. Is that how you see it? And what’s your comment on those apparent preparations for an attack?”, Nauert said, “We would call on – certainly on the Turks to not take any actions of that sort” in the press conference held in Washington.
“Our focus is ISIS”
Stating that they want to focus on Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Nauert said, “’ll go back to something I said when we were talking about Iraq and the referendum – to keep their eye on the ball. And the focus needs to be on ISIS. So we don’t want them to engage in violence, but we want them to keep focused on ISIS”.
Responding to a question about US planning to build a border security force in Syria, Nauert said that both the State Department and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson already clarified the subject.
“We are not building border force”
For the question “The Turkish foreign minister has said that your comment, your position on an SDF border force in Syria remains unsatisfactory. What’s your response to his statement?”, Nauert responded “He did say that, that that is unsatisfactory?”, and added:
“I was not aware of that, but the Secretary I think addressed that very clearly yesterday in which he said it was unfortunate. Someone clearly misspoke about the activities taking place. This is an internal security force that the United States is involved with.
“The main reason we are there in Syria is to fight ISIS. That has not changed, that is our main focus there.
Reminding Tillersons’s statement, Nauert said, “Let me just remind you some of what the Secretary said about this. Quote, ‘We are not creating a border security force at all. We’ve shared with the Turks what we are doing. We are trying to ensure that local elements are providing security to liberated areas.’ He goes on to say, ‘This is just [one] more training and trying to block ISIS from their escape routes.’
“In addition to that – and I think the best place to point you is to the Department of Defense. They put out a note yesterday in which they clarified some of the activities taking place and additional details about that. So I’d have to refer the Turks to the DOD – the DOD memo that went out”.
“Border security force" tension
The US-led Anti-ISIS Coalition declared that they would build a security border force of 30 thousand people with their allies in Syria on January 14. According to the plan, the force will perform their duty from Syria-Turkey border in the north to Iraq-Syria border in the east and along Euphrates River.
Half of the security border force is planned to be comprised by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) whose main constitution is the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey.
Turkey strongly denounced the statement and started to launch artillery fire on Afrin from Hatay province.
Speaking after the artillery fire, President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that the offensive will continue and delivered the message that “the campaign can start any time now”.
On January 18, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Spokesperson for the Pentagon Eric Pahon said that they will not build “Border Security Force” (BSF) on the Syrian border. (EA/TK)