Türkiye's military operations in Syria won't be limited to airstrikes, says Erdoğan

Photo: AA

Türkiye's military operations in Syria will not be limited to airstrikes, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said late yesterday (November 20).

"Right now, there are terrorist organizations in the south, which are planning many attacks and carrying out them. These exist both in Iraq and Syria," the president told reporters on the presidential plane returning from the World Cup opening ceremony in Qatar.

"It's out of the question that this will be limited to an air operation," he said, adding that the Defense Ministry and the General Staff would decide how much of a land force would be needed for such an operation.

Erdoğan's remarks came after Sunday's airstrikes targeting dozens of locations in Syria's north and Iraq's Kurdistan region.

"Forty-five terrorist targets at a depth of approximately 140 kilometers in northern Iraq, and 44 targets at a depth of about 20 kilometers in Syria were hit," he said about the operation, noting that 70 aircraft, including warplanes and armed drones, were used in the operation.

The strikes were in response to the November 13 bomb attack in İstanbul, which killed six people, the Defense Ministry said. Türkiye held the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the People's Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish group in Syria, responsible for the attack while both groups denied any involvement.

While Türkiye has taken steps in Syria by making diplomatic contact with the countries that have a presence there, he had neither talked to President Joe Biden of the US nor President Vladimir Putin of Russia before Sunday's operation, said Erdoğan.

"However, both Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin know that we can do such things in the region at any moment," Erdoğan said, adding that Türkiye will take more "decisive steps" in the near future.

The Sochi deal

The president also recalled the October 2019 Sochi deal between Russia and Türkiye, saying, "They had the responsibility to clear the terrorists from the area. Unfortunately, even though we reminded them many times over and over, they did not do this. We said that we would not remain silent against this and that we would take steps against the terrorists there if they could not do it."

The deal was signed following Türkiye's "Operation Peace Spring," where it captured the towns of Tell Abyad, Suluk and Serê Kaniyê (Ras al-Ayn) from the YPG.

Since 2016, Türkiye has carried out four major military operations in Syria, targeting the Kurdish-controlled areas in two of them.

In an offensive in early 2018, it captured the northwestern city of Afrin and its surrounding regions and took control of the mentioned areas in the 2019 offensive.

Ankara has since then expressed its intentions to create a 30-kilometer "safe zone" along the Syria-Türkiye border. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in late May said Türkiye would start a new operation to achieve its purpose, but Russia, Iran and the US opposed such an offensive.

Türkiye and its allied groups currently control several regions in northwestern Syria, with the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) also having a significant military presence in Idlib, the jihadist stronghold. (VK)