Turkey Deploys More Tanks Along Syrian Border

Date: 16 January 2018 - 20:46

News ID: ۴۸۹۴۲

HATAY, Turkey (Dispatches) -- Turkish armed forces have deployed more than 40 armored vehicles along the Syrian border after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to stop a force being created by the U.S., military sources said Tuesday.
Two dozen armored vehicles entered Reyhanli district of southeastern Hatay province "for reinforcement reasons", the Anadolu news agency reported.
A convoy of 20 tanks has also arrived in Viransehir district of southeastern Sanliurfa province, according to the sources. They have been sent from southeastern Mardin province to assist military units on the Syrian border.
Erdogan on Monday said final preparations were under way to invade the Kurdish canton of Afrin, as tensions rose once again between the ostensible allies over Syria.
His speech in Ankara came a day after the U.S. announced it would form a 30,000-strong border force led by the Kurdish YPG militia - a group Turkey regards as terrorist and linked to the PKK organization in Turkey.
"A country we call an ally is insisting on forming a terror army on our border," said Erdogan. "What can that terror army target but Turkey? Our mission is to strangle it before it's even born."
"This is what we have to say to all our allies: don't get in between us and terrorist organizations, or we will not be responsible for the unwanted consequences," Erdogan said.
"Either you take off your flags on those terrorist organizations, or we will have to hand those flags over to you... Our operations will continue until not a single terrorist remains along our borders, let alone 30,000 of them."
Erdogan also said that Turkey's armed forces had completed preparations for an operation against the Kurdish-controlled region of Afrin in northwest Syria. On Sunday, he told members of his AKP party: "If the terrorists in Afrin don't surrender, we will tear them down."
Russia also opposed the U.S. plan, warning that it could lead to the partitioning of Syria.
Iran: U.S. Force Breach of Int’l Law
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday the new U.S. force inside Syria constituted a breach of international law and Syrian sovereignty, joining Syria, Turkey and Russia in a vehement rebuke of the plan.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has vowed to crush the new force and drive U.S. troops from Syria.
"The new plan that the Americans have in mind for Syria is violation of international laws and a plot against sovereignty and security of Syria and region,” Rouhani said during a meeting with the speaker of the Syrian parliament Hammouda Youssef Sabbagh.
Sabbagh was in Tehran for a conference of parliamentary speakers.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said earlier on Tuesday that the planned U.S. force inside Syria would "fan the flames of war” and raise tensions.
"The U.S. announcement of a new border force in Syria is an obvious interference in the internal affairs of this country,” Qasemi was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.
Qasemi urged all U.S. forces to leave Syria immediately.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart Muhammad Javad Zarif discussed the conflict in Syria in a phone conversation, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
The plans for a border force include 15,000 militants from the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a militia dominated by the Kurdish YPG.
The forces are expected to be deployed along the border with Turkey, in northern Syria, the Iraqi border in the southeast, and along the Euphrates River valley.
Fawaz Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, warned that for Turkey, the U.S. border force was a "slap in the face" and has inflamed tensions between the two countries.
"Even though the relationship has come under duress, they are not going to cut the umbilical cord the two sides have," Gerges told Middle East Eye.