Turkey sent the army chief to Moscow on Thursday to seek Russia’s approval for an air campaign on the Syrian-controlled Syrian region of Afrin despite warnings from Damascus it could drop any Turkish planes entering its airspace.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mouloud Zhaoshoglu said that the visit of Chief of Staff Khulosi Akkar to Moscow comes in consultation with Russia and Iran, the main supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to allow Turkish aircraft to participate in the Afrin campaign.
The trip is the strongest sign so far of Turkey’s intention to carry out direct military action on territory controlled by Kurdish factions, which is likely to open a new front in the Syrian civil war.
That means confronting the Kurds allied to the United States at a time when relations between Ankara and Washington are nearing the point of collapse.
The US State Department urged Turkey on Thursday not to take military action in the Afrin region and continue to focus on fighting the Islamic state.
In response to a question on indications of Turkey’s readiness to attack Kurdish militants in Afrin, the ministry’s spokeswoman Heather Naort told a news conference: “We will call on the Turks not to take any actions of this kind … We do not want them to engage in violence, Focus on the organization of the Islamic state.”
“We will intervene in Afrin,” Zhaooshoglu told CNN Turk, adding that he did not expect Russia to oppose any operations there.
“We are in talks with the Russians and Iran on the use of airspace.”
Turkey last week raised its threat to take military action in Afrin in response to US plans to create a 30,000-strong force to protect Kurdish-controlled areas in a large area east of Afrin.
Washington has documented its alliance with Syria’s Kurds, who have become key US agents on the ground in the war against Islamic state regulation over the past two years. That angered Ankara, which considers Syrian Kurdish units to be an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging a rebellion against the Turkish government for decades.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the planned border force as a “terrorist army” and vowed to “abort her before her birth.”
The issue has become one of several issues affecting relations between the United States and its ally in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Relations between the two countries are already strained over Washington’s refusal to ask Turkey to extradite Turkish-born Turkish cleric Fathullah Kohlen, who is accused by the Turkish government of plotting the coup attempt in 2016 and a Turkish bank trial in the United States for circumventing US sanctions against Iran, Senior.
In the past few days, Turkey has deployed tanks near the border with Syria on the other side of the Afrin region, and Erdogan said the Turkish army had bombed Kurdish forces there.
Since the outbreak of the Syrian war seven years ago, Turkey has been one of Assad’s strongest opponents and has joined the United States in supporting the opposition fighting to overthrow him, but has recently cooperated with Iran and Russia, Assad’s main backers to reduce fighting between government forces and the opposition, calling the Kurds their biggest threat.
The Turkish foreign minister said Akar would hold talks in Moscow with the commander of the Russian armed forces to discuss the Afrin, Idleb and “Syria’s future” issues.
Turkey needs to take into account the presence of some Russian observers in Afrin, the minister said. “When we carry out an intervention, we need coordination in this regard and this should not affect Russian observers,” he said.
The foreign minister said that Turkey had been subjected to daily attacks from Afrin, adding that the area controlled by the opposition in northern Syria was also attacked.
“Our response to this is our legitimate right to reciprocate and we have informed the United States,” he said, adding that Turkey was dissatisfied with US efforts to ease its concerns about its support for the planned border force.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he had met with his Turkish counterpart to clarify the matter and added that the situation “was misinterpreted and misinterpreted. Some of the words were inaccurate. ”
“We expressed our dissatisfaction with the meetings we had with the defense and foreign ministers,” the Turkish minister said. “But the statements of the United States do not satisfy us completely.”
“Our lack of confidence in the United States remains.”
