ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Friday refuted a Turkish defense ministry claim that they killed five of the Kurdish-led force in an operation in northeast Syria (Rojava). Turkey’s defense ministry issued a statement that its army had killed five SDF fighters in an area along the border that the Turkish army and its Syrian proxies seized control of during its 2019 “Peace Spring” operation. “According to the Ministry of Defense of the occupying Turkish state, today while our forces were preparing for the attack in the Serekaniye - Girespi region, five of our fighters were martyred. On this day, no attack attempt was made by our forces on the occupied area. Their claim is not true,” the SDF tweeted hours after the Turkish statement. Turkey launched the cross-border “Peace Spring” operation in 2019 with the goal of pushing Kurdish forces back from the area and protecting the border. Turkey considers the SDF and its Kurdish backbone People’s Protection Units (YPG) as a terror organization with ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish armed group that fights for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey. The claim and denial come amidst an increase in clashes between the two sides. The SDF on Friday blamed Turkey for a deadly drone attack on a road that leads to the city of Qamishli. The Rojava administration said the Turkish attacks were “clear attempts to distract focus away from fighting Islamic State (ISIS) cells” and to “damage the stability” in regions under its control. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as of Thursday Turkey has carried out 30 drone attacks on areas controlled by the SDF in 2023, killing a total of 53 people - 11 civilians, including a child and two women, 39 military personnel, and three Syrian regime soldiers.
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