It was “time for settlements,” Turkey’s Defense Ministry announced via Twitter on Sunday night. “Terrorist elements” must be neutralized and attacks on Turkey avoided, it said. The center of gravity of the attacks: the Kurdish militias YPG and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the Turkish air force attacked Kurdish positions in northern Syria on Sunday night. A spokesman for the organization said at least 12 people were killed or injured. According to the YPG, Syrian government posts were also attacked. The regions of Kobane and Aleppo have been affected.
The Ministry of Defense in Ankara invoked the right of self-defense under the Charter of the United Nations. It is about avoiding “terrorist attacks” against the Turkish people and security forces.
The conflict between the Turkish armed forces and the PKK has a decades-long history and has claimed thousands of victims so far – most of the PKK members and allies have been killed, according to the organization International Crisis Group.
Regions around the town of Kobane, which is particularly important to Kurdish forces, have now been attacked, according to the Syrian Observatory. Experts say Ankara’s troops could try to connect the areas they occupy to the west and east of the city.
The airstrikes followed just days after the bomb attack on Istanbul’s busy Istiklal shopping street that killed six, for which Ankara blames the YPG and PKK. The investigation is ongoing and 17 people were arrested on Friday. PKK and YPG clearly deny any involvement and accuse Turkey of creating a pretext for renewed military action in northern Syria. Independent experts also expressed such assumptions, especially since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced such an offensive months ago.
Turkey has launched four military offensives in northern Syria since 2016, also targeting the YPG. Ankara considers the YPG an offshoot of the Kurdish underground organization PKK and considers both to be terrorist organizations. The US cooperates with the YPG in the fight against the terrorist militia IS, but classifies the PKK as terrorist. Ankara also blocks the NATO accession of Sweden and Finland, citing, among other things, the alleged support of the Kurdish militias by both countries.
In northern Syria, Turkey occupies border areas as a result of its military operations and cooperates with rebel groups. Against the background of an increasingly hostile attitude towards refugees in the country, Erdogan had announced that he wanted to return a million Syrians there.
Erdogan has been talking about a possible military offensive since the middle of the year, which should penetrate up to 30 kilometers from the border into the neighboring country. Russia and Iran – both also involved in the Syrian civil war – had advised Turkey against such an approach. The US had also warned Ankara of a new offensive.
(SDA)