by debkaFile
The Turkish president has told Trump and Putin he would not seize N. Syrian Afrin from the Kurds after insignificant gains in his three-day military assault.
The Turkish president has told Trump and Putin he
would not seize N. Syrian Afrin from the Kurds after insignificant gains
in his three-day military assault.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that,
notwithstanding the Turkish army’s claim to have captured four Afrin
villages, there were no real military clashes and the Kurdish YPG
militia simply opened the door and withdrew. Turkish forces are
meanwhile making no preparations to move on to take the enclave’s main
town of Afrin. They appear to have marked out a narrow strip of the
northern Syrian border region to pave the way for moving east towards
the Kurdish-held town of Manjib. Our sources report that Turkey’s war
for Afrin is virtually at a standstill, but for sporadic cross-border
artillery shelling and occasional air strikes, confirming Erdogan’s
assurance to the US and Russian presidents that he was not planning to
conquer Afrin.
However, our sources’ prediction that his next
target was to be Manjib was confirmed Tuesday, Jan. 23, when Syrian
sources reported that the Turkish army had opened another front and was
advancing towards Azzazz, to the east of Afrin and 32 km northwest of
Aleppo. In his note to US President Donald Trump, Turkey’s Tayyip
Erdogan also recalled an American-backed commitment that Kurdish forces
would not move west, across the Euphrates River, which he claimed they
had repeatedly violated. Now, Erdogan is demanding that the Kurds pull
back across the river, namely, evacuate Manjib. Diplomatic mail moved
between Ankara and Washington, with no real US action, beyond demands
for restraint.
On Monday, Jan. 21, when his communications with
Moscow on the Afrin issue came to light, Erdogan declared: “Turkey will
not step back from Operation Olive Branch until its goals are achieved.”
He also claimed he had reached an understanding with the Russians on
those goals – even though their talks are still far from any such
understanding.
Yet Moscow is keeping open lines with Ankara for two objectives of its own:
- To try and save the Sochi peace track for Syria in time to hold its
next conference on Jan. 30. Russia initiated this track with Turkey and
Iran as co-sponsors, but, to be validated, all the factions fighting in
the Syrian war must be represented there, including the Kurds. For
President Vladimir Putin, this event is intended to crown his efforts to
choreograph an end to the Syria war and its political transition to
peace. That hope was put at high risk in consequence of Turkey’s Afrin
offensive.
DEBKAfile’s sources report that President Bashar Assad is hopping mad with the Russians, accusing them of giving Erdogan the green light for his offensive in Afrin. They say they will draw appropriate lessons from this episode with regard to other parts of Syria. - Moscow is also taking flak from Tehran. Iran and Egypt have joined Syria in condemning the Turkish offensive. Iran and Syria are now digging their heels in against any changes in the Syrian constitution, a topic that was to have topped the agenda at Sochi.
debkaFile
Source: https://www.debka.com/erdogan-holds-back-threatened-conquest-afrin-goes-manjib/
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