Alwaght- Kurdish militants in Syria have urged the government in Damascus to repel a Turkish offensive against them in Afrin region and defend the country’s sovereignty.
“We call on the Syrian state to carry out its sovereign obligations towards Afrin and protect its borders with Turkey from attacks of the Turkish occupier ... and deploy its Syrian armed forces to secure the borders of the Afrin area,” the Kurdish authority controlling Afrin said in a statement on Thursday.
The Kurds in northern Syria have been trying over the past years to hive off their administrative affairs from the central government by trying to assume autonomous powers.
The latest statement is viewed as a step back by the Kurdish militants from attempts to establish a state in Syria’s northern regions which they captured from ISIS terrorists a few months ago and refused to hand over to the central government.
Syria does not regard the areas controlled by the Kurdish militants, which operate as a proxy force of the United States, as liberated, with President Bashar al-Assad slamming all US-sponsored Kurdish armed elements are “traitors” to the nation last month.
Over the past days, the Kurds have been facing Turkey's so-called Operation Olive Branch, which was launched last Friday in a bid to eliminate the US-backed Kurdish YPG militants, 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.
Syria has condemned the Turkish aggression against its territory and vowed to respond with appropriate action.
