ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that his country is “closely” monitoring the developments in Syria, adding that Ankara is "ready to do whatever we must to extinguish the fire" in the region.
“We have been closely following the recent developments that suddenly erupted in our neighboring country, Syria,” Erdogan said during a press conference in Ankara.
Erdogan said that Turkey has been warning that the conflicts in the Middle East will also affect Syria and the “recent events have confirmed and validated” Ankara’s position.
A coalition of Syrian rebel groups spearheaded by the jihadist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Syrian National Army (SNA) launched a major offensive against the Syrian army over the past week. They took control of the northern city of Aleppo, the largest in the country, and advanced their offensive into Hama province.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday said that the developments are part of a wider plan to divide the region, in a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian, with Tehran also a key backer of Damascus.
Erdogan said Ankara’s greatest wish is “the preservation of Syria's territorial integrity and national unity, and the resolution of the ongoing instability—now in its 13th year—through a consensus based on the legitimate demands of the Syrian people.”
The Turkish President noted that Ankara is ready to “do whatever is necessary to extinguish the fire in our region.”
Besides the clashes between the rebels and the Syrian regime in Aleppo, the SNA, which is backed by Turkey and effectively controls the Kurdish city of Afrin, launched an offensive against Kurdish forces that held their positions in several towns such as Tel Rifaat and the Shahba area in northern Aleppo.
Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly Kurds, fled their hometown of Afrin in 2018 in the face of a military operation by Turkey and its Syrian proxies, reside in Shahba and other Kurdish-held areas.
The stride by the militants pushed hundreds of thousands of Kurds to be displaced from their homes.
Local sources told Rudaw on Monday that thousands of Kurds were stuck on the roads while trying to flee the Shahba area.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Monday said it is working with “relevant parties” in Syria to safely evacuate the people of Tal Rifaat to areas under its control in northeast Syria (Rojava).
