Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to destroy the terror infrastructure, east of the Euphrates River, in northern Syria. During an address to his ruling AK party, two days after the Turkish military reportedly conducted a massive bombardment of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, President Erdogan emphasized that a wide-scale operation, in northern Syria, was imminent. “We will not only leave it here, but we will also destroy the terror structure (referring to Syrian Kurdish YPG ) in east of the Euphrates river. We have made our plans and finished our preparations regarding this matter. In fact, in the recent days, we started actual intervention against the terrorist organization. We will soon come down hard on the terrorist organization with more comprehensive and effective operations,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu rejected accusations made by the Syrian government that Ankara was not meeting its obligations under an agreement to create a demilitarized zone around the Islamist-held Idlib region, saying the deal was being implemented as planned. In a trilateral press conference with his Iranian and Azari counterparts, Foreign Minister Cavusoglu stressed that the agreement Turkey reached with Russia did not face any challenges. “As for Idlib, you must have heard that our Russian partners have expressed their pleasure many times after this memorandum was signed. Therefore, there is no such problem regarding Idlib. Withdrawal of heavy weaponry, withdrawal of radical groups and what we will do with these radical groups (after withdrawal) we need to talk about these matters and we are talking about these matters. However, there are currently no issues in implementing the memorandum,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said.
The agreement that was forged in September between Russia, Syria’s most powerful ally, and Turkey, which backs various rebel groups, thwarted a major government offensive into the Idlib region, which is the last major rebel-held stronghold. According to the agreement, Turkey established a buffer zone running between 15 and 20 kilometers deep into rebel territory that was to be free of heavy weapons and jihadists by mid-October. While the main rulers of Idlib are the al-Qaeda linked Tahrir al-Sham, Ankara was able to sway the Jihadists to withdraw and abide by the agreement.