Turkey’s Operation Peace Spring in Syria
At least 277 Kurd rebels, one Turkish soldier and six of civilians have been killed, while 46 civilians are wounded so far in recent fighting between Turkish armed forces and Kurd rebels.
Turkish military has stormed into Kurdish areas in Syria. A large number of people have in panic fled their houses as a result of the ongoing intense fighting along the border areas, after the Turkish forces pounded the border region with air raids and artillery fire.
The situation has become complex with interests of different entities in the Syrian war.
Turkey had launched Operation Peace Spring on Oct 9 in northern Syria “to secure its borders and Syria’s territorial integrity by eliminating terrorist elements and to ensure the safe return of Syrian refugees,” Turkish state news agency, Anadolu Agency, stated on Oct 11.
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Turkish forces killed 49 more YPG/PKK “terrorists” during overnight strikes on Friday.
Turkey and the United States have declared Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) a terrorist organization.
Kurd is the fourth largest ethnic nation in the Middle East. After fall of the Ottoman Caliphate, the nation was divided into different countries including Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Armenia. They were initially promised to give a separate land, but later the promise could never be fulfilled.
The government of the transcontinental country has said that PKK and its offshoot YPG/PYD were the biggest threat to Syria’s future, jeopardizing the country’s territorial integrity and unitary structure.
Turkey and Syria share 911 km or border, which serves as a “terrorist corridor”.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said they only aimed to fix the region’s demography and send two million Syrian refugees back to their homes.
The country wants to resettle the refugees in 30 kilometer proposed safe zone in Syria, between the Euphrates River to the Iraqi border. Nevertheless, the rebel groups posed threat in formation of the safe zone.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad has blamed the Kurdish forces for the ongoing Turkish offensive in northern Syria.
He said the Kurdish forces in northern and northeastern Syria had refused attempts to resolve the situation in the Kurdish-controlled areas.
Pakistanis on Friday launched a Twitter trend with hashtag #TurkeyisnotAlone in support of the brotherly country.
Here are some of the noteworthy tweets from the trend:
