Posted on 10/09/2019 9:21:41 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Wednesday the beginning of a military operation in northeastern Syria, days after President Donald Trump pulled U.S. troops out of the region.
"The Turkish Armed Forces, together with the Syrian National Army, just launched #OperationPeaceSpring," Erdogan wrote Wednesday in a tweet. "Our mission is to prevent the creation of a terror corridor across our southern border, and to bring peace to the area."
Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, said Turkish warplanes started carrying out airstrikes on civilian targets Wednesday.
"There is a huge panic among people of the region," he said.
Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency reported two mortar shells had been fired into Ceylanpinar, a Turkish town on the border with Syria, from the Syrian Kurdish town of Ras al Ayn. The Syrian Kurdish town was targeted by Turkish forces, with large explosions, artillery fire and smoke reported, Reuters reported, citing a CNN Turk reporter. Kurdish forces told AFP at least two civilians were killed in the attack.
According to Reuters, Turkish howitzers began to strike bases and ammunition depots of the Kurdish YPG militia on Wednesday and targeted the militia's gun and sniper positions.
The conflict prompted officials to call an emergency meeting Thursday of the United Nations Security Council, AFP reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at wpxi.com ...
Looks like the PKK (i.e., the Communists there) is about to get CRUSHED!!!
Oh well...
Is the communist PKK also Islamic? Wasn’t sure if the two co-exist.
I don’t think they’re Islamic...like you say, doesn’t work that way with Communists - the state is their ‘religion’.
Well thank God for that! </sarcasm>
Is this true? Or is this meant to be deceptive reporting?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Workers’_Party
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK (Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê[a]) is a Kurdish far-left militant and political organization based in Turkey and Iraq. Since 1984 the PKK has been involved in an armed conflict with the Turkish state (with a two-year cease-fire during 2013–2015), with the initial aim of achieving an independent Kurdish state, later changing it to a demand for equal rights and Kurdish autonomy in Turkey.[16][17][18][19]
The PKK was founded in 1978 in the village of Fis (near Lice) by a group of Kurdish students led by Abdullah Öcalan[20] and 1979 it made its existence known to the public.[21]The PKK’s ideology was originally a fusion of revolutionary socialism and Kurdish nationalism, seeking the foundation of an independent Communist state in the region, which was to be known as Kurdistan. The initial reasons given by the PKK for this were the oppression of Kurds in Turkey and Capitalism.[22][23] By then, the use of Kurdish language, dress, folklore, and names were banned in Kurdish-inhabited areas.[24] The words “Kurds”, “Kurdistan”, or “Kurdish” were officially banned by the Turkish government temporarily.[25] Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish language was officially prohibited in public and private life.[26] Many who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned.[27] The PKK was then formed, as part of a growing discontent over the suppression of Turkey’s ethnic Kurds, in an effort to establish linguistic, cultural, and political rights for Turkey’s ethnic Kurdish minority.[28]
Since the PKK’s foundation, it has been involved in armed clashes with Turkish security forces. The full-scale insurgency, however, did not begin until 15 August 1984, when the PKK announced a Kurdish uprising. Since the conflict began, more than 40,000 have died, most of whom were Turkish Kurdish civilians.[29]
Since PKK leader Öcalan’s capture and imprisonment in 1999, he has moved on from Marxism–Leninism,[30] leading the party to adopt his new political platform of democratic confederalism while ceasing its official calls for the establishment of a fully independent country. In May 2007, former members of the PKK helped form the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organisation of Kurds from Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. In 2013, the PKK declared a ceasefire agreement and began slowly withdrawing its fighters to the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq as part of the solution process between the Turkish state and the Kurdish minority. In July 2015, the PKK announced that a ceasefire was over and said that Ankara had welched on its promises regarding the Kurdish issue.[31] In August 2015, the PKK announced that they would accept another ceasefire with Turkey only under US guarantees.[32]
The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by several states and organizations, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan,[33] and the European Union. However, the United Nations and countries such as Switzerland, China, India, Russia and Egypt, have not designated the PKK as a terrorist organization.
Plenty of other countries that can help out if the UN thinks it’s necessary. Stop depending on Trump. They don’t like him anyway
Thank you for sharing this.
At least the military arms YPG and YPJ (women warriors) are trying only to establish independence and national identity of the Kurdish peoples from the Turks and their caliphate-renewing associates like the ISIS (who are truly terrorists). Christians serve in the YPG and YPK in support of their own existence as Kurds.
That's the way as a non-expert that I read the times. Kurds seeking preservation of their identity is the reason the US has been supporting their independence. Maybe Israel will come forth to support t he Kurds as we walk away from the full-war confrontation with Turkey.
Are Erdogan and his cult our friends? Not any more. They hate us for standing against the resurgence of the Ottoman genocidal caliphate, now that the USSR bloc has been broken up.
That's a great point. These war monger POS scum, who have no problem Americans buffering MULTIPLE warring sides, would rather see American casualties and escalation with (for better or worse) a NATO member because they HATE Trump. How sick is that? I guarantee that these fidiots spouting off about "turning our backs" on our "ally" could not give us a rundown who the Kurds are if it is broken down.
I hear a lot of congress people condemning Trump for not defending Kurds against Turkey.
But I haven’t heard any of them calling for kicking Turkey out of NATO or stopping US aid to Turkey. Why is that? Can anyone explain?
explain?
Iran
Ok, then there’s no problem with not fighting Turkey over the Kurds
Turkey has wanted a buffer zone along the northern border of Syria east of the Euphrates. Erdogan announced this buffer zone weeks ago at the UN and is headed to DC next month.
The SDF/Kurds occupied that area 3 years ago to seal off the border crossings by ISIS, that Turkey wouldn’t stop. Now Turkey wants to control those crossings being used by the Kuyrd PKK for cross-border attacks into Turkey.
We had 4 observation posts in the area that we abandoned.
Syria has upwards of a dozen armed militias all fighting each other. It is a civil war from village to village.
Right now it is shelling only of PKK positions. Turkey has been performing airstrikes against the PKK all over Kurdistan, including Iraq.
We can only push back so hard on Turkey, we have several air bases in Turkey.
Frankly, Turkey is better positioned to maintain peace than anyone else, certianly better than Assad and his SAA.
Turkey wants to regain areas that were historically Turkish during the Ottoman Empire. There are many villages and towns in northern Syria that are a majority Turkic peoples.
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