Erdoğan names two towns in Syria for new military offensive, US reiterates opposition

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said yesterday (June 1) that Turkey will target the towns of Tell Rifaat and Manbij in Syria's northwestern Aleppo governorate.

"We are entering a new phase of our decision to create a 30-kilometer deep safe zone along our southern borders. We will be clearing Tell Rifaat and Manbij from terrorists," he said at his Justice and Development Party's (AKP) parliamentary group meeting.

"Then we will do the same in other regions gradually," he added. "We will see who will support and who will try to hinder these legitimate security steps of Turkey."

Turkey has long asked the US and Russia to end the presence of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in the mentioned towns. Earlier in the week, Erdoğan accused the two countries of not keeping their promises.

CLICK - Why Erdoğan wants a new military offensive into northern Syria 

Since mid-2016, Turkey has carried out four major military offensives in northern Syria, with two of them targeting the Kurdish groups — the 2018 Afrin offensive and the 2019 "Operation Peace Spring."

Erdoğan's recent statements about a new military offensive in Syria coincides with Turkey's opposition to the NATO membership bids of Sweden and Finland, which he accuses of supporting the same Kurdish groups.

Blinken urges maintenance of ceasefire

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said they would oppose a new military offensive by Turkey.

"Any escalation in northern Syria is something that we would oppose, and we support the maintenance of the current ceasefire lines," he said yesterday at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, referring to a ceasefire brokered by Russia and US following Turkey's 2019 offensive in northeast Syria.

"The concern that we have is that any new offensive would undermine regional stability, such as it is, and provide malign actors with opportunities to exploit instability for their own purpose.

"We continue, effectively, to take the fight through partners to ISIS within Syria, and we don't want to see anything that jeopardizes the efforts that are made to continue to keep ISIS in the box that we put it in."

SDF: It would be a disaster

Mazlum Abdi, the head of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an umbrella group including Kurdish forces, also said a military offensive by Turkey would harm the fight against ISIS.

"It will create a humanitarian disaster as well as derail the fight against ISIS," he wrote on Twitter today.

"We are concerned about the possible threats. It poses a high risk on northern Syria. Any offensive will divide Syrians, create a new humanitarian crisis, and displace locals and immigrants.

"An increase in the tension will derail our fight against ISIS. We are calling on actors to decrease the tension and prevent new tragedies." (VK/TB)