Rouhani calls on Turkey to end Afrin operation ‘at earliest time’
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called on the Turkish government to stop its military operation in the Kurdish canton of Afrin “at the earliest time,” saying that the war has brought death and destruction to all the peoples, including the “Kurdish brothers.”
“Our main issue here is that the intervention of military forces of one country should be based on the consent of the host country,” Rouhani told reporters on Tuesday in his second press conference since he was re-elected president last year.
“We wish that the Turkish operation in Syria will end at the earliest time because our Turkish, Kurdish, and Syrian brothers are being killed, a fact we reject,” he continued, Iranian ISNA news agency reported.
Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch against the Kurdish force, YPG, in the northwestern enclave of Afrin on January 20. Hundreds of people have been killed, the majority of whom are Kurdish.
Iran has been supporting the Syria regime since the start of the civil war in 2011, assisting Damascus in its conflict with Syrian rebels and ISIS.
Russia is also backing the Syrian regime while Turkey is supporting Syrian opposition groups. Iran, Russia, and Turkey are guarantors of several de-escalation zones that were decided in talks in Astana last year.
On the second day of the Turkish operation, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called the “brutal aggression” of the Turkish military in Afrin as supporting “terrorism.”