Erdogan: Turkey launches operation into northeast Syria

Turkish troops have begun an offensive in north-eastern Syria, which could lead to direct conflict with Kurdish-led forces allied to the United States.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the operation was to create a “safe zone” cleared of Kurdish militias which will also house Syrian refugees.

According to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), civilian areas were attacked by Turkish warplanes.

President Donald Trump controversially withdrew US troops from northern Syria.

His decision to pull back US soldiers from posts near two border towns after a phone call with President Erdogan at the weekend sparked widespread criticism at home and abroad.

The Kurds – key US allies in defeating the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) in Syria – guard thousands of IS fighters and their relatives in prisons and camps in areas under their control and it is unclear whether they will continue to be safely detained.

Announcing the offensive, Mr Erdogan said on Twitter: “The Turkish Armed Forces, together with the Syrian National Army [rebel groups backed by Turkey], just launched #OperationPeaceSpring” against Kurdish militias and the Islamic State group in northern Syria.

“Our mission is to prevent the creation of a terror corridor across our southern border, and to bring peace to the area.

“We will preserve Syria’s territorial integrity and liberate local communities from terrorists.”

Turkey wants to create a “safe zone” cleared of Kurdish militias which will also house some of Turkey’s 3.6 million Syrian refugees.

Meanwhile, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces — a key U.S. ally in the war on the Islamic State group that controls much of the area close to the border — said airstrikes had begun.

“There is a huge panic among people in the region,” spokesman Mustafa Bali tweeted.

Mr Trump’s withdrawal of the few dozen US troops in the border area was seen as a “stab in the back” by the SDF and drew condemnation even from the president’s Republican allies

He responded to the criticism by threatening to “obliterate” Turkey’s economy if it went “off limits” in the incursion, saying Turkey should “not do anything outside of what we would think is humane”.

The U.S. military began pulling back its forces from the Turkish border after the White House’s announcement Sunday.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, are led by the Kurdish YPG militia, which has long angered the Turkish government and Erdogan. Turkey sees the YPG as an extension of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is considered a terrorist group by the U.S.

In a statement earlier on Wednesday, the SDF called on the international community and all countries in the international coalition against ISIS to “carry out their responsibilities and avoid a possible impending humanitarian disaster.”

“This attack will spill the blood of thousands of innocent civilians because our border areas are overcrowded,” it said.

According to multiple current and former U.S. officials, the White House’s announcement blindsided not just America’s Kurdish partners but almost everyone — senior officials at the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House, lawmakers on Capitol Hill, and U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East.

On Monday, Trump warned in a tweet that if Turkey — a longtime American ally with NATO’s second-largest standing army — did anything that he considered to be “off limits,” he would “totally destroy and obliterate” its economy.

The White House said in a statement on Sunday that Turkey would now be responsible for all ISIS fighters in the area captured over the past two years.

BBC/ NBC