Bashar al-Assad asked to protect borders with Turkey from attack
Kurdish militias fighting against Turkey in the Syrian enclave of Afrin have called on the government of Bashar al-Assad to intervene and protect the area’s borders.
The latest development, nearly a week into Turkey’s military offensive, could undermine Kurdish aspirations for self-governance and, if heeded, could set the stage for a direct military confrontation between Ankara and Damascus.
Turkey has reneged on its pledge to not hound locally employed staff at US missions on its soil, with police interrogating a Turkish citizen working for the United States consulate in Istanbul yesterday, Al-Monitor has learned. The move could
Turkish official denies Trump raised concerns over military action in Kurdish enclave in Syria
The US and Turkey have released opposing accounts of a phone call between Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, highlighting deepening tensions between the two countries amid a Turkish military campaign inside Syria last weekend.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vows to ‘thwart’ Kurdish opposition in move that may force US reaction
Turkey has said it will extend its incursion in Syria to the town of Manbij, taking its forces to the edge of the US-backed Kurdish presence in the country’s north-east and raising the spectre of a military standoff with Washington.
While multiple parties pursue their interests in Syria, civilians continue to pay the priceDead civilians and thousands fleeing the fighting – Turkey’s attack on the Kurdish enclave of Afrin is a new and unwelcome phase in Syria’s seven-year war, but one that was widely predicted. The only surprise is its spectacularly inappropriate name, Operation Olive Branch. Ankara’s antipathy to the prospect of an autonomous or independent Kurdish state is longstanding. But the conflict is supercharg
