“France’s support for the stabilization of the security zone in the northeast of Syria”
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UPDATE 1115 GMT: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has pushed back on France’s announcement of support for Kurdish forces in northeast Syria:
President Erdoğan: “France no longer has any right to complain about any terrorist organization, any terrorist, or any act of terror.
Those who get into bed with terrorists and even welcome them at their palaces will sooner or later realize their mistakes.” pic.twitter.com/hkADNG2qot
— Turkish Presidency (@trpresidency) March 30, 2018
Erdoğan rejected President Emmanuel Macron’s offer to mediate between Ankara and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces:
We do not need a mediator. Since when has Turkey been sitting at a table with terrorist organizations? Where did you get this from? You can sit at the table with terrorist organizations. But Turkey fights against terrorist organizations in places like Afrin.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron (pictured) has given assurances of support to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria, with Kurdish officials saying Paris was committing to sending troops to the region.
“The President…paid tribute to the sacrifices and the determining role of the SDF in the fight against Daesh [Islamic State],” Macron’s office said.
The statement comes as the Kurdish militia YPG, which leads the SDF, has been driven out of the Kurdish canton of Afrin in northwest Syria after a nine-week offensive by Turkey and the Free Syrian Army. The YPG, the military branch of the Syrian Kurdistan Democratic Union Party (PYD), has lost Afrin city and almost all towns and is now surrounded in the key border town of Tal Rifaat.
Significantly, the statement by Macron’s office covered only the Kobani and Cezire cantons in the north and east: “He assured the SDF of France’s support for the stabilization of the security zone in the north-east of Syria, within the framework of an inclusive and balanced governance, to prevent any resurgence of Islamic State.”
Paris also did not refer to tension over the fate of Manbij, the city in eastern Aleppo Province captured by the SDF from ISIS in August 2016. On Thursday, the Turkish National Security Council, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, demanded the withdrawal of the YPG from the city and its retreat east of the Euphrates River.
So far the US, which backs the SDF, has held out against the demand. Last month the American general leading the anti-ISIS coalition visited Manbij in a show of support.
Macron’s statement on Friday followed his first meeting with a delegation from the PYD and YPG and including Christian and Arab officials. On Tuesday, the French President spoke with Donald Trump about the situation.
Khaled Eissa, the PYD’s representative in Paris, said, “There will be reinforcements to help secure from attacks by Islamic State and stop a foreign aggression. It’s message that this irresponsible action from the Islamists in Ankara stops.”
Eissa also said Macron had pledged humanitarian assistance and a push for a diplomatic solution.
Turkey considers the PYD and YPG to be part of the Turkish Kurdish insurgency PKK, which has battled security forces for more than 30 years.
The French Presidency would not say whether Paris was sending troops. In the statement, it said Macron is offering to mediate between Ankara and the SDF, saying the latter has distanced itself from the PKK: “Acknowledging the commitment of the SDF to have no operational link with this terrorist group…he hopes that a dialogue could be established between the SDF and Turkey with France and the international community’s help.”
US-Led Coalition: 2 Troops Killed, 5 Injured by IED in Manbij
The US-led coalition says two troops were killed and five wounded by an improvised explosive device in Manbij on Thursday night.
The coalition gave no further details, including the names and nationalities of those slain and injured.
Mohammed Abu Adel, the head of the Manbij Military Council, said the IED detonated hundreds of meters from a security headquarters that houses the council.
Uneasy Pause in Attacks on Douma Amid Rebel-Russia Talks
Residents of Douma, the center of the embattled opposition enclave in East Ghouta, report an uneasy pause in regime-Russia attacks as rebels continue discussions with the Russians about a capitulation agreement.
Muhammad al-Marhoum, a 27-year-old doctor, took a long walk through the streets for the first time in two month: “There is bombing, but very little compared with before. I can wander around town.”
The eight-week pro-Assad offensive, enabled by Russian strikes, has taken all other areas of East Ghouta as they killed about 1,700 people, wounded thousands, and displaced tens of thousands. Jaish al-Islam, the rebel faction in Douma, has been in discussions with the Russian military for days.
About 70,000 residents remain in Douma. “The atmosphere is depressing,” says al-Marhoum. “There’s a lot of confusion
everyone wants a solution.”
Jaish al-Islam is trying to avoid the forced removal of fighters and residents which has been imposed on East Ghouta’s other towns.
“We are currently negotiating to stay — not to leave,” said spokesman Hamza Beriqdar. He maintained talks are “moving in a positive direction”.
NGOs in Geneva: Save Syrian Schools
A coalition of Syrian NGOs has appealed to the UN in Geneva to “save Syrian schools”.
The groups say that they “are under no illusion that Syrian-Russian forces will suddenly stop committing war crimes”, but are calling on countries to sign the Safe Schools Declaration, a pledge to protect schools from attack and military use.
Human Rights Watch summarizes that 1.75 million children inside Syria and hundreds of thousands of young refugees are out of school. More than 4,000 schools are out of commission, destroyed, or damaged.
Last week, the pro-Assad assault on East Ghouta near Damascus killed 16 children and four young staff in a shelter in Arbin, as they took shelter near their school.
France should accept some refugees instead of sending more arms and soldiers.
YPG invaded 40% of syria and 70% of syrian oil and gas reserves thanks to ISIS and USA. ISIS was just a pretext to divide syria and invade its oil.
YPG has deported or killed thousands of arabs to change the demography and extend its territory.
YPG literally obliterated raqqa city with over 2000 civilian casualities. just compare pictures of raqqa and afrin you will see how turkey handled civilians issue unlike terrorist ypg and its allies.
Turkey hosts over 4m syrian refugees while the rest of the world does nothing but provide more bombs and give false promises of financial aid (not even 1/3 of the promised eur 3bil is given to syrian refugees)
Again, france should sit its back and figure out what it can do for the war victims instead of sending troops.
So you wish to ethnically cleanse Syria of the Kurds and ship them elsewhere so that terrorist Erodgan can install an Islamic fascist regime in northern Syria? Not very progressive, is it. Northern Syria belongs to its inhabitants and not to Erdogon or to Nazi Assad.
In Egypt participation rate in election is 38% and sisi won with 92%. A clearly fake election where opposition was not even allowed to run for presidency. Do we see any criticism from the hypocrites who say Turkish election where more than 80% participated and erdogan won only with a slight difference, was rigged?
They said sisi had the right to overthrow morsi because Morsi did not get majority of the votes. Now I guess ikhwan has the right to pull a coup by their logic, since sisi did not get majority of votes in reality. That’s what they understand from democracy, bloody military coups and fake elections are good and democratic when conducted by their stooges.
No wonder these hypocrites were accusing raqqa civilians for their own deaths because they didn’t leave city after US announced it would bomb city. The same hypocrites have no problem bashing the butcher Assad for doing the same in ghuta.
It is an indicator of how awful US policies are, that not coherent people but only hypocrites defend US actions. If those people were defending my country I would be ashamed of my country.
Lol, no one is defending your country. So, you attack egypt and wrap it up into anti-us rhetoric. Snooze. Go murder kurds, only accomplishment your country has made. But it is incredibly sad, truthfully, to watch the rapid disintegration of turkey from a modern leaning country to one stuck in ancient history. Sad to see the wisdom of the founders of the country tossed to the trash heap. It’s a sad example of the tragedy of history repeating itself
Erdogon would not have received even 20% of the votes if it were not for the rigged elections where he used government money to buy voters and campaign for himself, while arresting newspaper editors or closing newspapers that backed any other candidate. One has to be very naive and childish not to understand the reality under Islamist politics. Your logic is comic. Just because Erdogon won by a slim majority does not mean the election was open and fair. AKP uses state money to buy votes and pay off supporters, village bosses, and clerics to campaign for the president-for-life. With the internet shutting down in Turkey, there is no opposition to Erdogon.
Wrong, Morsi was illegitimate not because he got a minority of the votes, but because he disallowed free and fair campaigning in the election which he won by the terror of Islamist thugs and their hangers-on. And I have never said that Sisi is legitimate. So stop erecting a strawman. Fact is that 13 million Egyptians came to the streets to protest Morsi’s brain-dead Islamification of Egypt – something that you support with “Turkish Muslims to become more observing so they can rise and attack (the West)”.
No the US did not target Raqqa civilians. There was just ONE incident where the US mistook a group of refugees inside ISIS held Raqqa with a congregation of ISIS terrorists planning to attack the SDF, and bombed them. The US acknowledge its mistake. But has Erdogon acknowledged that he shipped bombs and arms to Nusrat which was stopped at the border? No, he put the newspaper reporter in jail.
Where is that fact documented? Islamification or not, he was removed in a coup not democratically. The Saudis and the deep state ran an aggressive disinformation campaign to remove him
Andre, could you please stop with the blockquotes? Editing your text is nice, but not with a 25+ point font size. Using quotation marks on your keyboard while italicizing the text you’re quoting gets the job done, and is much more pleasing to the eye.
Andre – more proof of leftists supporting the Islamification of the M.E.
Morsi was not elected legitimately and he was illegitimate. So how do you remove an illegitimate head of state? You arrest him.
How do you even dare to come here and defend Erdogon when he is shutting down the internet in Turkey, and instituting fascism? Wikipedia is now illegal in Turkey — and you consider yourself European, when you hate the culture of democracy and open society? You want to join the EU because you think you are European, while at the same time shutting down Wikipedia?
So why do you want to join EU?