Kurdish SDF fighters after the Turkish army and its mercenaries Syrian proxies continue their attacks on areas in the western countryside of Ain Issa district in the Euphrates region, Syrian Kurdistan, November 23-24, 2019. Photo: ANHA
ANKARA,— Turkey is fully abiding by the agreements it reached with Russia and the United States regarding Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava), the Kurdish region in northeast Syria, and is not resuming its military offensive, a security source said on Monday.
Ankara reached separate agreements with Moscow and Washington last month to remove the Kurdish YPG militia from a swathe of land in Syrian Kurdistan bordering Turkey, which in return stopped its military offensive against the militia.
But Ankara has previously said neither Russia nor the United States had kept up their side of the deal, and threatened to launch a new operation. The security source said on Monday that Turkey was responding to attacks by the YPG in the region within the scope of self defense.
A Britain-based war monitor on Saturday said that Kurdish fighters sought to fend off Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies near a key Ain Issa town in Syrian Kurdistan on Saturday.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the autonomous Kurdish administration’s de facto army, said pro-Ankara Arab fighters had launched an attack on Ain Issa, where they have bases and offices.
“Turkish forces launched attacks with tanks, artillery and a large number of mercenaries… to invade Ain Issa,” they said in a statement on Twitter in English.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said Turkish drones and artillery batteries were backing pro-Ankara fighters in clashes a kilometre (less than a mile) from the town.
“The SDF are trying to prevent Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies from advancing towards the town,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
Ankara said it would suspend the military operation after the October 22 deal with Moscow, but forces have continued to inch forward ever since, the Observatory says.
The DSF said in a statement on Sunday “The Turkish army and its mercenary factions carried out an attack on the town of Ain Issa from three directions with support of armed unmanned aerial vehicles and artillery. Our forces retaliated against those attacks in self-defense and fierce clashes broke out on several fronts around Ain Issa.”
Ankara and its Syrian Arab proxies on October 9, 2019 launched a cross-border attack against Kurdish fighters in Syrian Kurdistan after the United States said it would be withdrawing troops from the region.
The Kurdish Democratic Union Party PYD and its powerful military wing YPG/YPJ, considered the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria and U.S. has provided them with arms. The YPG, which is the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces SDF forces, has seized swathes of Syria from Islamic State.
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