Since when did you start to side with terror? Erdogan asks West
Tehran (KNA) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the West’s failure to support Turkey’s cross-border operation against Kurdish militants in northeastern Syria means “standing by terrorists.”
Can you imagine the whole West stood by the terrorists and all attacked us including NATO member states and European Union [EU] countries?" said Erdogan, speaking at Turkey's TRT World Forum in Istanbul on Monday.
Turkish military forces and militants of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA), who enjoy Ankara's patronage, on October 9 launched a cross-border invasion of northeast Syria in a declared attempt to clear Kurdish militants from the so-called People's Protection Units (YPG) from border areas.
Ankara views the US-backed YPG as a terrorist organization tied to the homegrown Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group, which has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region in Turkey since 1984.
The YPG, which itself is the military wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), constitutes the backbone of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an anti-Damascus alliance of predominantly Kurdish militants.
The incursion came after the US abruptly withdrew its forces from the region, clearing the path for Turkey to go ahead with a planned military action against Washington's longtime Kurdish allies.
Source: PressTV