Translated material
The branch of war
Türkiye began the military operation "olive branch" in the area of the city of Afrin in the north of Syria, which is under the control of the formations of the Syrian Kurds. This was announced by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reports Hurriyet Daily News.
Erdogan called the operation "anti -terrorism." According to the president, the fighting of the Syrian opposition "with the support of the Turkish Armed Forces" conducts fighting. In the future, Turkish military plan to occupy territories in the area of the city of Manbij, also controlled by Kurds. “Step by step, we will clean the country to the border with Iraq from a terrorist abomination that tries to take our country in siege,” Erdogan said.
On Friday, the media reported that Turkish artillery and aviation are firing on the positions of the Kurds. The Turkish military announced that they had struck the "shelters" of the Kurdistan Workers' Party and "folk self -defense units" after the shelling of the Turkish territory by them.
Meanwhile, the official representative of the US State Department Hiser Neurte urged Turkey to refrain from violence against the Kurds in the African area and focus on the fight against the Islamic State.
In connection with the beginning of the Turkish operation, the Russian military was withdrawn from the Afrin district, the Ministry of Defense said . "In order to lead possible provocations, exclude the threat of the life and health of Russian military personnel, the operational group of the Center for Reconciliation of the warring parties and the military police in the African area was relocated," the military department said.
Kurds, the total number of which is about 30 million people, is the world's largest ethnic group that does not have its own state. After the First World War, when the Ottoman Empire fell, Kurdistan lands were divided between four countries: Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. In all these states, the Kurds were subjected to one or another oppression. In particular, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the 1980s led a systematic genocide of this people.
In March 2016, the Kurds who freed the northern part of Syria from the IS militants announced the creation of a federal region in the territory controlled by them.
The Foreign Ministry of Syria called the Kurdov’s decision unconstitutional and "nothing worthless." The Syrian National Coalition, one of the main opposition groups, said that it rejects such unilateral decisions and warns against any attempts to create autonomous regions. The Turkish authorities also stated that they were opposed to one -way decision on federalization.