Secretary of State Rex Tillerson engaged in a “productive, open conversation” with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Thursday night, State Department officials said, engaging for more than three hours on growing disagreements over Erdogan’s decision to invade Syria.
U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis was optimistic on Thursday about finding “common ground” with Turkey in Syria, where Turkish troops and their local allies may be positioning for a strike against territory occupied by American troops.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson begins a pivotal visit to Turkey on Thursday evening intended to mend fences of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s repeated threats to attack U.S. soldiers in Syria.
Turkey’s prime minister has warned his country “will fight” the United States if it stands in the way of its anti-Kurdish operations, shortly before U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to meet with the country’s president.
The U.S. State Department dismissed increasingly aggressive rhetoric from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan directed at America as something Washington is “used to,” following a threat from Erdogan that U.S. forces would soon experience the “Ottoman slap.”
An official within the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) this week that the militia would welcome the presence of Syrian government soldiers in Afrin if they fought against the ongoing Turkish invasion of that region.
The fuse may be lit on a major new crisis in war-torn Syria, as Turkish forces and their local allies push deeper into Syrian territory and threaten Manbij, a city where U.S. troops are deployed.
Contents: Israel’s F-16 warplane shot down in aftermath of downing Iranian drone; Turkish helicopter shot down in Afrin, days after Russian warplane downed in Idlib; With defeat of ISIS, war escalates, and Syria becomes more fragmented and chaotic
Saturday morning’s violent clashes along the Israeli-Syria border between Israel on the one hand and Iran and Syrian regime forces on the other occurred against the backdrop of multiplying acts of war and violence between a seemingly endless roster of combatants.
U.S. Lt. Gen. Paul E. Funk assured reporters on a visit to Manbij, Syria, that American forces would not leave the northern city even if Turkish forces attack it. Asked about concerns that Turkey would come into direct conflict with U.S. troops, Funk said, “it’s not in my job description to worry, my job is to fight.”
Turkey’s “Operation Olive Branch” military incursion into Syria has been conducted in concert with the Free Syrian Army, which has helped Turkish forces take control of several villages in the Afrin region.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called upon Turkey to end its military incursion into Syria as soon as possible because Turks, Kurds, and Syrians alike are being killed. He also chastised Turkey for failing to seek permission from the Syrian government before launching the operation.
The Middle Eastern outlet Kurdistan 24 interviewed Kurdish civilians in Afrin, northern Syria, who had taken to hiding in local caves from what the outlet called “heavy bombardment” of civilian areas by the Turkish military.
On Monday morning, Pope Francis received the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for a 50-minute meeting in the Vatican, in the midst of heightened security, with thousands of extra police officers in evidence throughout Rome.
The Turkish government has a thin skin at the best of times, and it has been especially quick to silence critics since its invasion of Kurdish territory in Syria began, but a flamboyant televangelist named Adnan Oktar apparently feels comfortable waging a vigorous war of words with the Directorate of Religious Affairs, otherwise known as the Diyanet.
Contents: Russia’s Syria peace talks in Sochi dissolve into farce as Lavrov gets heckled; Russia sidelines the failed United Nations Syria peace process; War continues in full force, with Syria and Turkey killing ‘terrorists’
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarian crackdown on dissent from his war in Syria continued on Tuesday with the arrest of eleven members of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), who dared to issue a public denunciation of the ironically-named “Operation Olive Branch.”
Ismail Kahraman, Speaker for Turkey’s National Assembly, described his country’s military incursion against the Syrian Kurds as a “jihad” over the weekend. Meanwhile, the Turkish government’s crackdown on criticism of the operation continued with over 300 new arrests.
A Pentagon spokesperson deemed “Operation Olive Branch,” Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria to combat the U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish militia there, a “distraction” but ultimately “not a crisis” between the two NATO member countries in comments Thursday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that his forces are prepared to push all the way across Syria to the Iraqi border in their campaign against Syrian Kurdish forces, fueling fears that Turkey’s incursion will trigger a new refugee wave, and could end in a confrontation with the U.S. military.
A spokesman for the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), an U.S.-allied militia currently under attack by the Turkish military, claimed on Friday that the group’s fighters had successfully thwarted all attacks against them in “Operation Olive Branch.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Sunday speech on the Turkish offensive against Kurdish forces in Afrin, Syria has gotten plenty of international attention, but a curiously underreported passage found the Islamist president railing against the Kurds as “collaborators in a postmodern crusade that our region is exposed to.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in no mood to hear criticism of his military incursion against Syrian Kurds in the Afrin region from the public, media, or opposition lawmakers. Kurdistan24 notes that he promised to “pulverize” dissidents, and his government is doing exactly that with a wave of investigations and arrests.
Turkey was long renowned for its secular government, a modern state guided by the vision of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk when he built the Republic of Turkey from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in the early years of the last century.
Turkish government sources told the newspaper Hurriyet on Thursday that the White House readout of a call between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan “does not accurately reflect” the conversation and that its contents were “not true.”
President Donald Trump held a telephone conversation with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey on Wednesday afternoon in which he urged caution for Turkey’s military incursion into Syria and called for Turkey to “avoid any actions that might risk conflict between Turkish and American forces.” However, Trump appears to have stopped well short of demanding Erdogan halt the operation against Syrian Kurds.
Turkey is a sovereign nation and the U.S. isn’t going to get into an argument with it. But apparently, Washington isn’t going to stop Ankara from falling off a cliff, either.
Turkey’s military General Staff claimed on Tuesday that its “Operation Olive Branch,” an invasion of Afrin in northern Syria, killed “at least 260” Kurdish and Islamic State terrorists. The United States and its Syrian Kurdish allies have both denied there being a significant ISIS presence in that area.
Turkish media have confirmed that Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met American Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Paris on Tuesday as U.S. envoys arrive in Ankara to discuss the “struggle against terrorism,” a salient topic as Turkey continues its military invasion of Syrian Kurdish territories on its border.
Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria called for a mass military mobilization on Monday as the Turkish incursion into Afrin continued, with artillery strikes expanding to other nearby cities.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Sunday afternoon the beginning of a major military offensive, bizarrely dubbed “Operation Olive Branch,” against America’s battlefield allies in Syria, the Kurdish YPG militia.
An official with Iraq’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) told reporters this week that the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga may deploy to Syria to fight the Turkish military if President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insists on “Operation Olive Branch,” the Turkish name for that nation’s invasion of Syria.
Contents: Turkey begins its air and ground invasion of Syria’s Afrin; China lies about ‘indisputable sovereignty’ in new confrontation in South China Sea; Summary of major Generational Dynamics predictions
Turkish ground troops entered Syria on Sunday to push an offensive against Kurdish militia as rocket fire hit a border town in apparent retaliation.
Turkey on Saturday launched a new air and ground operation to oust Kurdish militia from a northern Syrian enclave, defying US warnings that the action risked destabilizing the area.
Contents: Turkey’s troops mass on border, preparing to invade northern Syria; Collapse of the Russian ‘peace process’; The growing conflagration in northwest Syria
Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli affirmed that the Turkish military would cross into Syrian territory and attack U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in that country on Friday, a move that may trigger direct clashes between Turkey and the Bashar al-Assad regime.
The pro-government Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak reported on Thursday that Syrian Kurdish fighters and Turkish soldiers traded “harassment” and “artillery fire” on the border of the two countries, a sign that the two sides may resort to openly attacking each other as tensions soar in the region.
Contents: US in Syria announces a Border Security Force to prevent repeat of Iraq withdrawal blunder; Turkey, Russia and Syria infuriated by the Border Security Force announcement
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Monday to annihilate a 30,000-strong Kurdish-majority force in Syria that has the backing of the United States.
