Alwaght- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that “unilateral” US actions in Syria had infuriated Turkey and pushed Ankara to start an offensive against the Arab state.
"Many political scientists are asking why do we care and say that the worst is the best: let the United States prove its inability to find an agreement, (to show) its destructive role in global affairs, let it be in Iran or Syria and where the unilateral actions have already infuriated Turkey,” Lavrov told Kommersant newspaper in an interview.
The Russian Foreign Minister was also quoted by TASS news agency as saying that US effort to create security forces along Syria’s borders with Turkey and Iraq may be a deliberate provocation.
In the follow-up of this course towards gross interference in Syria’s affairs, it was announced that some border security forces would be set up,” TASS quoted the minister as saying.
After that, some “clumsy statements” were made to dismiss this information but in fact, this entire activity continued, he said. “This is either failure to understand the situation or a deliberate provocation,” he said.
Kurdish representatives are on the invitation list for the Syrian National Dialogue Congress due in the Russian resort of Sochi, he noted. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia maintains contact with Syrian and Turkish officials. “We believe that the principle of preserving Syria’s territorial integrity is the basic one… We’re keeping an eye on the humanitarian aspects related to the current events in the area of Afrin,” he said.
On Saturday Turkey launched the so-called military Operation Olive Branch in a bid to eliminate the US-backed YPG, which Ankara views as a terror organization and the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). The latter has been fighting for an autonomous region inside Turkey since 1984.
The operation was launched days after Washington said it would work with the Kurdish militants to set up a 30,000-strong border force near Turkish soil, a move that infuriated Ankara.
Turkey extends incursion into Syria
Turkish armed forces expanded their aggression into Syrian territories, advancing into the Azaz district Northwestern afrin region, east of the Afrin region, state Anadolu agency reported as Operation Olive Branch enters its third day.
Ankara said 153 targets were struck as of Sunday evening, including units of Kurdish forces and ISIS.
President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Turkey would not take a step back from the operation in the Afrin region. He also said that Ankara had an agreement with Russia regarding its military operation against a US-backed Kurdish militia.
Speaking in Ankara, Erdogan stressed that he wants to support the national security and territorial integrity of Syria as Turkey “has no designs on territories of another country.”
Meanwhile, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) vowed to send reinforcements to the Afrin region to repel the Turkish offensive.
“We are in the framework of looking at the possibility of sending more military forces to Afrin,” SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel said, as cited by Reuters. The statement came following the Turkish prime minister’s warning that any party providing logistical support to YPG militants in the region will become a target of Turkey’s military.
