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January 15th, 2018 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : Turkey’s President R. Tayyip Erdogan has said his country could launch a military offensive on Afrin and Manbij in northern Syria, within a week if Kurdish forces do not withdraw. The region is controlled by the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
“If the terrorists in Afrin do not surrender, we will destroy it,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared in a blazing speech at his party’s provincial congress on Saturday, reported the state-run Anadolu Agency.
Ankara conflates Kurdish groups in northern Syria, the political party PYD and the armed YPG, with Turkey’s Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). Erdogan has said several times that he will not allow a “terror corridor” along Turkey’s border.
The PYD and its military wings, the YPG and the all-female YPJ, receive military support from the United States. Although the PYD – YPG/YPJ occasionally deny any links with the PKK, the photo and banners with the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan are ever present at PYD – YPG/YPJ offices and events.
The presence of Öcalan and PKK links were toned down somewhat, when the YPJ/YPJ began receiving US military support in the fight against ISIS and as the main constituent of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
By 2017 the YPG has about 60,000 fighters. Archives, courtesy YPG
Erdogan said that he was disappointed the United States was continuing its relations with the Kurdish forces in northern Syria under the umbrella of the SDF.
Aldar Khalil, co-president of the executive body of the Movement for a Democratic Society (TEV-DEM), the ruling administration in Rojava, northern Syria, told the Reuters news agency this week that the Syrian conflict could be extended if Turkey tries to “stir up problems in some areas.”
Saleh Moslem, former leader of the PYD and now a foreign relations official for TEV-DEM, on Saturday warned Turkey against attacking Kurdish areas in Afrin. “The Kurdish people will rise up as a whole. It will be total warfare,” he said.
CH/L – nsnbc 15.01.2018
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2018/01/15/turkey-could-launch-military-offensive-on-syrian-kurds-in-afrin-and-manbij-within-a-week-erdogan/
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