Turkey launches bombing campaign against US-backed Kurds in Syria

ByNews Desk- The Cradle

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has said that further attacks by the occupying army in northern Syria will be considered 'crimes against humanity'

Turkish military convoy in Syria. (Photo credit: Defence View)

The Turkish military launched an attack on several villages in the northwestern countryside of Syria’s Hasakah governate and the city of Afrin on 25 May, using heavy artillery, rocket-propelled grenades, and airstrikes targeting Kurdish militias including the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Turkey’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that five PKK militants were “neutralized” in northern Syria, and another three in northern Iraq.

“Our fight against terrorism will continue with determination,” the statement went on to say.

The Turkish attacks come just three days after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced his intentions to launch a new military campaign against US-backed Kurdish forces in northern Syria.

Erdogan said the operation will allegedly resume efforts to establish a 30-kilometer long ‘safe zone’ along Turkey’s southern borders.

The Turkish goal to establish a safe zone in northern Syria “targets the Syrian sovereignty, exposes Syrian territories to further occupation and threatens the Syrian social fabric,” the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the SDF’s political wing, said in a statement.

“We believe that the efforts to settle Syrians in areas that are not their areas after the displacement of the original inhabitants of the north, so that aims at bringing about the demographic change against the people of Kurdish nationalism,” the statement added, reiterating the SDF’s fear regarding Ankara’s refugee resettlement project.

On 25 May, the Syrian Foreign Ministry issued a statement to the UN condemning the Turkish occupation and saying that further incursions by Turkey’s military into Syria would be considered “war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

In a statement released earlier this week regarding Turkey’s plans to establish “safe zones,” the Syrian Foreign Ministry said “the creation of such zones is not intended to protect the border areas between Syria and Turkey… the main objective is colonialism [and] terrorist plans directed against the Syrian people.”

During a briefing on 24 May, the US State Department condemned Turkey’s plans for a new operation in Syria.

“We expect Turkey to live up to the October 2019 Joint Statement, including to halt offensive operations in northeast Syria,” State Department Spokesman Ned Price said.