kayhan.ir

News ID: 54127
Publish Date : 19 June 2018 - 21:31

Syria Condemns Turkish, U.S. Presence Around Manbij

DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – Syria said on Tuesday it rejected the presence of Turkish and U.S. forces around the northern town of Manbij, a day after soldiers of the two countries began patrolling the area.
Turkish and U.S. troops on Monday began patrols along the line separating Turkish-controlled areas of northern Syria from the town of Manbij, which is controlled by a local militia affiliated to the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia.
Ankara views the YPG as a terrorist organization. Earlier this month Turkey and the United States endorsed a tentative deal to overcome months of dispute over the town, in which the YPG would withdraw from Manbij and Turkish and U.S. forces would jointly maintain security and stability there.
"Syria expresses its strong condemnation and absolute rejection of the incursion of Turkish and American forces in the vicinity of Manbij, which comes in the context of continued Turkish and American aggression,” state news agency SANA said, quoting a foreign ministry statement.
The statement added that following successive achievements against various terror groups, the Syrian people and their valiant armed forces "are more resolute and determined than ever to liberate the entire Syrian soil from any foreign elements and to preserve the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of the Arab country.
The Syrian government has given a degree of authority to the Kurdish regions to run their own affairs in the face of a foreign-backed militancy. The U.S., however, has used the vacuum to establish a foothold in those regions with the help of militants.
Ankara, for its part, considers the SDF as largely composed of militants from the People's Protection Units (YPG), viewed by the Turkish government as a terror group and the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The latter has been fighting for an autonomous region inside Turkey since 1984.
In another development in the country, warplanes struck a terrorist-held area in Syria’s southwestern Deraa province on Tuesday, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, a military escalation in a territory where government forces have been mobilizing for an offensive.
The raids targeted the area of al-Masika village in northeastern Deraa province. Terrorists control swathes of territory in southwestern Syria, which borders Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

This picture taken on April 3, 2018, shows vehicles of US-backed coalition forces driving in the northern Syrian city of Manbij.