The leader of the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit, Siban Hamo, said in an interview published by the pro-Kurdish news agency Furat that “the region will be cleared of the calamities” of Turkey, in response to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s comments on Tuesday that his forces would soon occupy areas controlled by the Kurdish militia in northern Syria.
Hamou said his forces were “ready to defend Rouge Afa, and Afrin, specifically, whoever was the target of the attack” on the Kurdish region of northern Syria, which the Kurds call Rogge Ava, the western Kurdish region.
“Sooner or later, we will get rid of the terrorists’ woes one by one in Syria, starting with Manbaj and Afrin,” Erdogan’s statement came hours after Erdogan said in a speech to his party’s deputies in Ankara.
The two cities are located in areas under the protection of the Kurdish people, the backbone of Syria’s democratic forces , but Ankara considers it a “terrorist” organization linked to the PKK in Turkey.
Hamo stressed that “our units will be able to cleanse the region of Erdoğan’s calamities, as we were previously cleared from the organization of Daesh (Organization of the ‘Islamic State’) terrorist, so will be the war in Afrin.”
“Erdogan’s dirty plans will fail, and we will turn those plans into big gains for the peoples of the region.”
In the opinion of the Kurdish leader, Turkey can not carry out an attack on Afrin if “not approved by Russia, Iran, the United States and the Syrian regime,” noting that international law will not allow such an attack, stressing that “all international laws and norms do not allow this.”
“If the attack on Afrin, the Kurdish people will demand all those countries to assume their responsibilities.”
Turkey has responded sharply to the declaration of the US-led coalition to fight the “Islamic State Organization” on Sunday that it is working to form a border security force of 30 thousand elements in eastern Syria, in cooperation with the Syrian Democratic forces.
The international coalition announced that the aim of the formation of this force is to “prevent the return of the organization Islamic state.”
But Erdogan fears that these groups will permanently settle on the doors of Turkey, and has threatened Monday to “destroy this terrorist army in the bud.”
The Turkish president stressed that his army was “ready” to launch an operation “at any moment” against the strongholds of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units in Afrin and Manbij, in northern Syria.
The Turkish president responded positively to journalists’ questions on Tuesday about the possible cooperation of Turkish troops with Syrian opposition factions in a similar operation, without giving further details.
