The Turkish National Security Council issued a statement on Tuesday that “Operation Peace Spring,” the Turkish invasion of northeastern Syria, will continue despite cease-fire agreements brokered with the United States and Russia.
A humanitarian organization in northern Syria, the Free Burma Rangers, announced on Sunday the death of medic and cameraman Zau Seng.
The general commander of the majority Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) accused Turkish soldiers and their allies Thursday of “occupying Christian villages” in northern Syria, where Turkish officials claimed this week their military operation had ended.
The Kremlin issued a warning to Kurdish forces on Wednesday that they must withdraw from the Turkish border region immediately, or else “Syrian border guards and Russian military police officers will have to pull back,” leaving the Kurds to be “run over by the Turkish military machine.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he felt “serious sadness” at criticism against his country’s invasion of Syria from the Islamist regime in Iran on Tuesday, lamenting that President Hassan Rouhani did not “prevent” officials from condemning Erdogan.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters on Thursday that the ceasefire brokered by the United States between Ankara and Syrian Kurdistan was “not a ceasefire” and that Turkey will only withdraw from Syria when the Kurds evacuate the region.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a formerly U.S.-allied coalition largely made up of Kurdish fighters, accused the Turkish military and its proxies of genocide against the Kurdish people on Wednesday and using tactics “similar to ISIS.”
Turkish government outlets and the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF), the mostly Kurdish militias mainly responsible for defeating the Islamic State in that country, offered wildly differing death tolls on both sides on Friday following Ankara’s decision to invade Syria this week.
