Tabnak – More than a year after the Turkish army conducted its first direct military operation inside Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan talks of a new military move in the war-torn country, in the strategic city of Idlib.
According to the Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that Turkey was conducting a "landmark" counterterror operation in Syria's Idlib.
Speaking at the Justice and Development Party (AK Party)'s consultative meeting in western Turkey's Afyonkarahisar, the president said: "Today a landmark operation is underway in Idlib, and this will continue. We will never allow a terror corridor along our Syrian border."
Erdogan said that Turkey aimed to provide security for Idlib by extending the area cleared from terrorists in Operation Euphrates Shield, and added that operations in the region would continue.
Erdogan’s remarks comes two days after his spokesman İbrahim has said in a statement that Turkey will do what it deems necessary for its security, in response to a question about a possible operation across the border in Syria’s Afrin.
In a statement given to local news outlet TRT Haber about a possible operation in Afrin, Kalın said that "Turkey will intervene at any time and place to do what it deems necessary for its security.”
Bloomberg notes in a report that Turkey has also beefed up troops on the Syrian border since Ankara, Moscow and Tehran agreed to establish a combat-free zone in Idlib -- largely controlled by former al-Qaeda militants -- and to monitor any violations by opposition groups or forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
On Saturday, Free Syrian Army (FSA) militants, riding on the back of trucks with automatic weapons, crossed into Idlib via Turkey as troops received orders about where they will be deployed in Syria, Hurriyet newspaper reported.
Erdogan said today that Turkish troops haven’t yet crossed the border and the operation was carried out by the FSA militants. The troops had earlier clashed their way to retake Syrian town of al-Bab from ISIS terrorist group.
Turkish troops are expected to be deployed inside Idlib with Russians stationed around the city, and the collaboration emphasizes the closer ties between Erdogan and Putin, a relationship viewed with concern by Turkey’s NATO allies.
It also represents a shift in Ankara’s attitude to Syrian leader Assad, analysts said. Turkey has long opposed any political transition under him, but Russia’s intervention in Syria’s civil war shored up the president after years of Turkish and US insistence that he must go.
It should be noted that at the same time as Erdogan prepares for a new Syrian operation, Russia has declared that its counter-terrorism airstrikes in Syria have killed a total of 180 militants — among them dozens of foreign mercenaries — over the past 24 hours.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said in a statement that an air raid near the city of Abu Kamal in the eastern Dayr al-Zawr Province had targeted a ISIS outpost, killing some 40 militants from Tajikistan and Iraq and destroying 7 vehicles with machine guns mounted on them.
As Turkey has been seeking the support of both Russia and Iran in its Syrian moves, it seems that now a minimum level of coordination has been shaped between the three countries, which in turn could have serious implication on the situation in Syria.
