The Turkish army led a series of air raids on Sunday, which left around thirty deaths in the regions of northern Iraq and Syria under the control of the Kurdish forces and the Kurdistan workers’ party (PKK ).
mo12345lemonde with AFP
“There is no question” that the operation launched Sunday, November 20 by Turkish aviation against Kurdish positions from northern Syria and Iraq is limited to an air dimension, promised the Turkish president , Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“The competent units, our Ministry of Defense and our General Staff will decide together the power which must be engaged by our land forces (…) We have already warned: we will make those who disturb us on our territory” , said the head of state on Monday, November 21, who addressed the press on his return from Qatar, where he attended the opening of the Football World Cup.
The air raids, which killed around thirty on Sunday in Syria, were carried out in retaliation for the attack which killed six on November 13 in Istanbul and which Ankara attributes to “Kurdish” terrorists. Sunday evening and Monday morning, rocket fire from Syria left three dead and fifteen injured on the Turkish side of the border.
With regard to the “Army Grifting” operation launched on Sunday against the Kurdistan workers’ party (PKK) and the defense units (YPG), “it was led by 70 planes and drones. are driven 140 kilometers in northern Iraq and 20 kilometers in northern Syria “said the president.
m. Erdogan also said that he had “no discussion” with his American and Russian counterparts, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, about the operation. The United States supports the YPG in the fight against the jihadists of the Islamic State group and Russia supports the militias engaged alongside the Syrian forces in the same region.