Turkey is targeting Kurdish militias with airstrikes in Syria. There are dead in southern Turkey and northern Syria. Concerns about a Turkish ground offensive are growing. Now Syria’s partner Russia is getting involved in the conflict.
After massive Turkish air and artillery attacks on Kurdish positions in northern Syria, Russia has expressed hope that Turkey will exercise restraint. “We hope to be able to persuade our Turkish colleagues to refrain from using excessive force on Syrian territory” in order to “avoid the escalation of tensions,” said the Kremlin’s envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently stated that he was considering deploying ground troops in the neighboring country. The country began a long-planned military offensive against Kurdish units in northern Syria on Sunday. According to the Turkish Defense Ministry, the attacks were directed against bases of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Syrian-Kurdish organization YPG.
For months, Russia had “done everything to prevent a large-scale ground operation,” said Lavrentiev in the Kazakh capital of Astana, where new negotiations on the Syrian conflict are taking place with representatives from Russia, Iran and Turkey. He called on everyone involved to “continue work” to find a “peaceful solution, including the Kurdish question.”
Turkey supports rebels fighting against the ruler Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Syria and Russia, on the other hand, have been allies for decades. However, the connection between the two countries has been particularly close since Moscow intervened militarily on Assad’s side in the war in Syria in 2015. As a result, the tide had turned in favor of the ruler, whose troops were able to retake a number of areas.
According to the Turkish army, 184 terrorists have been “neutralized” since the start of the new military offensive in Syria and Iraq. The Turkish government and armed forces also commonly use the term for Kurdish groups that have recently been attacked in both neighboring countries. The Turkish Ministry of Defense spoke of attacks from the air and with land-based guns on Tuesday night. The number of victims mentioned could not be independently verified. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had reported at least 35 deaths as a result of the new military offensive – including civilians.