Turkish PM: No Immediate Plans to Invade Syria

Confirms Talk of Carving 'Secure Zone' Out of Kurdish Territory

In an interview with Kanal 7, Turkish Premier Ahmet Davutoglu confirmed that Turkey has added more troops to the border with Syria, but insisted there are “no immediate plans” to launch an invasion of the nation, despite recent reports to the contrary.

Turkish President Recep Erdogan has been issuing statements recently condemning Kurdish gains against ISIS along the Turkish border, and Turkish media outlets had been reporting that Turkey was planning to invade and carve out a “secure zone” for refugees from former Kurdish territory.

Davutoglu said there was no present risk to their border, and that it would be inappropriate to launch a unilateral move right now, but did concede that there had been recent talk about the possibility of establishing the “secure zone.”

Turkey had been proposing the secure zone for years as a way to deal with the huge number of refugees in southern Turkey coming from Syria. Recent Kurdish gains have added that as part of the push, citing the growing refugee Arab population from Kurdish-held territory.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.