Turkey’s Erdogan vows to continue operations in Syria

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday said that his country will “remove” the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its alleged Syria offshoots from the region, vowing to continue his country’s operations against the armed group.

“These murderous groups, which deny anyone the right to live or speak, will undoubtedly be removed as a source of threat to our region,” Erdogan said in a speech following a Turkish government cabinet meeting in Ankara.

“We are determined to continue our precise operations against separatist terrorist elements in Syria with surgical accuracy, ensuring not even a single civilian is harmed,” he added.

Turkey considers the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), as the Syrian front for the PKK which is designated as a terrorist group by Ankara.

Mazloum Abdi, SDF chief, has repeatedly said that the PKK no longer exists in northeast Syria (Rojava), which is under the control of the Kurdish-led group. 

Last week, PKK commander Murat Karayilan told PKK-affiliated Sterk TV that the group “is not present in Rojava”.

The SDF is also the main ally of the US-led global coalition that combats the Islamic State (ISIS) on the ground in Syria.

Erdogan said that protecting Syria’s unity and territorial integrity remains Ankara’s “unwavering stance.”

“Preserving Syria's territorial integrity and unitary structure under all circumstances is Turkey's unwavering stance. We will never step back from this,” he said.

He also issued an ultimatum for the PKK to either disband or be eliminated by the Turkish army.

“There is no place for any terrorist organization, including ISIS or PKK, in the future of Syria and our region. The PKK and its affiliates will either dissolve themselves or be eliminated,” Erdogan said.

This comes a day after Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan made his first official visit to Syria since the collapse of the Syrian regime and met with the country’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.

During a joint press conference with Sharaa, Fidan said that the PKK is “occupying Syria” and is “stealing Syria’s resources and has established a terror haven.”

Jake Sullivan, the US’s outgoing National Security Advisor said on Saturday during a panel in New York that one of the “major issues” in Washington is “how to ensure that we are standing up for and standing with our best and closest partners in that ISIS [Islamic State] fight, that is Syrian Democratic Forces - Kurdish-led forces but also with a lot of Arabs fighting alongside them.”

“We need to stand with the Kurds and President Biden intends to do that,” Sullivan noted.

SDF chief Mazloum Abdi has warned during a series of interviews with international media that the ISIS threat has recently increased following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and amid escalating tensions between the SDF and Turkey-backed militia groups in northern Syria.