Speaking today on television, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that Turkey-backed rebels have seized a number of towns near the city of Manbij in northern Syria, and that the offensive is continuing to advance toward Manbij itself.
Erdogan did not offer specifics on the towns taken, and while Syiian forces reportedly came under fire by Turkish artillery last week, there have been no subsequent reports of Syria actually losing any of the territory it was gifted by the YPG, a string of villages which surrounds Manbij.
Erdogan has long insisted Manbij would be Turkey’s next target, and that Kurds must not be allowed west of the Euphrates River. The US has complained that Turkey does not face any threat from having Kurds in Manbij, and has deployed a number of Army Rangers into Manbij themselves to try to deter a Turkish attack.
US, Syrian, and Russian forces have all deployed in or around Manbij in recent days trying to dissuade Turkey from continuing the push, but Erdogan is giving the impression that the city continues to be his invasion force’s next target, irrespective of the obviously huge consequences of crossing the US and Russia in doing so.
Let the Turdkish army and their terrorists satraps come…. the earth will be sown with dead kebabs and Ankara will reverberate with the wails of the newly-widowed…
Turkey is cleaning the land of US backed terrorists, that’s why the US soldiers are there to protect US assets…
That’s also why neither the Russians or Syrians have made a fuss about Turkey.
Kurdish plans are to destroy the land integrity of Iraq and Syria to build their own nation there.
That’s why they [the kurds] have been destroying all the Arab villages that they conquer so that the Arabs and Turkmen don’t have anything to go back to.
Turkey, since it started its offensive a couple months ago has steadily gained ground against the Daesh/Isis and al Nusra and the YPG.
Thank you for the accurate report. In fact, Turkey, Syria and Russia all collaborated on taking over Al-Bab, even though most Western media applies some wishfull thinking, and sees strange motives where there are none. Example is Syria’s army blocking ISIS retreat, to help Turkey advance in Al-Bab. Russia and Turkey had joined air operations. In Manbij, it is important to keep the doors open to Kurds to strike a deal with Damascus, and thus distance from Turkish decided stand. But both want same — prevent Kurds from carving out their state at the ezpense of tens of thousands of Syrians, Iraqis, Asyrians, Turkmen and Christians living there. We tend to have an idealized version of Kurds , but the reality is not so rosy.
I do not mind at all more pressure being placed on the city where Kurds committed ethnic cleansing in full viewbofvUS forces. What is not known is a fact that part if Manbij has been taken over by Syrian forces, and Russia has sent demining crews to sweep the urban area. Turkey was very explicit about its approval of Syrian forces taking Manbij. The political game is dangerous to Kurds. They can accept the territorial integrity of Syria — let Syria take over Manbij, and will not have any more problems with Turkey. Or, continue hoping that US will deliver them a state, in which case, be ready to fight Turkey.
Turkey is in the process of fighting a nasty divorce from Europe. And lest we lost our memory, it is the collective European refined nose that looks down on people who actually fight terrorist cults — like Syria’s army, Russia and Turkey — while Europe sings praises to them, and is arming, feeding and politically lionizing them. And Turkey may be the first country to trash the false human rights and standards — Europe uses only when it suits its interests. Turkey has every right to adopt abpresidential form of government that better suits it needs. Who is Europe to judge? We still give Europe too much respect. It is deeds we beed to judge, not fancy self image of European busybodies. I am sure they still think entitled to define the future of Syria. Conceit and hubris, and all its lies exposed. But it is Turkey that is wrong in telling it as is.
As a secular, Kemalist Turk, I do not like Erdoğan and his religiousness and I dislike the power he is trying to amass, but I do agree with everything you posted.
Europe has toyed with Turkey and the European Union application, letting in countries with worse economies and human rights than Turkey.
Europeans have also supported the Isis, Al Nusra etc against Assad and where the ones who directly supported the US attack against Iraq during the gulf war which was based on lies.
The WMD’s Iraq had were supplied to Saddam by the USA, U.K, France and Germany while he was their poster child fighting the Iranians…
It even goes back further than that to the British, French and Russian secret documents and partitions they wanted during WW1…
So anyone who is ignorant of these well not understand the real geopolitics and power structures of the world
Turkey IS Daesh and the YPG are anarchists who support a stateless society that poses zero threat to any nation’s sovereignty which is why the Syrians are now defending them against the Ottoman goons. The US only supports the Kurds because they’re the only neutral party left.