TURKEY is poised to join the US-led war to remove the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, as well as having its own agenda to crush Kurdish nationalism.
Ankara’s parliament is today expected to approve a request from the Erdogan government to conduct military operations in Syria and Iraq, and to allow foreign forces to use Turkish military bases.
On Tuesday night, US-led forces carried out air strikes on IS militants battling Kurdish fighters around the northern Syrian border town of Kobane.
At least ten people were killed overnight, Syrian activists said yesterday.
Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Bashar al-Jaafari, stressed that Syria ‘supports any sincere and honest international effort to combat terrorism providing that it would preserve the lives of civilians and respect Syria’s sovereignty and the international pacts.’
In an interview with Russia Today TV channel, al-Jaafari lashed out at Turkey for being ‘a main accomplice’ in the terrorism inflicted upon Syria, questioning, ‘How could Turkey call for establishing a buffer zone to protect civilians as it claims, while at the same time it prevents the Syrian Kurds from crossing the border into its territories to escape ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra?’
He stressed that Turkey doesn’t have credibility in combating terrorism since it was the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan which has brought terrorists from all around the world and allowed them to enter Syria.
Al-Jaafari affirmed that the Syrian Arab Army is able to ‘eliminate the phenomenon of ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra in three months not three years if Erdogan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar stop their support to terrorism’.
Iraqi Kurdish fighters and an influential tribe of Sunnis, known as Shammar, regained control over a territory next to the border with Syria on Wednesday, after pushing back IS militants.
On Tuesday, Kurdish fighters reportedly seized the border crossing town of Rabia between Iraq and Syria, captured by IS militants over the summer.
Meanwhile, government troops have regained control over 16 settlements in the Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Defence.
Overnight, two British Tornado jets fired four missiles at IS vehicles in Iraq – at an armed pick-up truck and a transport vehicle west of the capital, Baghdad.
US-led forces have been bombing economic targets in Syria on the pretext of attacking Islamic State (IS) terrorists.
On Monday night, US-led coalition airstrikes destroyed grain silos and other targets in parts of northern and eastern Syria, killing civilians while only wounding IS fighters.
The bombings hit mills and grain storage facilities in Manbij, an IS-held town near Aleppo in northern Syria. Last week, the US-led coalition bombed oil refineries in Syria.
