Turkey will carry out operation in northern Syria - President Erdogan

Turkey will carry out an operation east of the Euphrates river in northern Syria, in an area controlled by PKK/YPG terror group, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday.

Erdogan said both Russia and the United States have been told of the operation.

Following US President Donald Trump's announcement last year of a planned US withdrawal from northern Syria, the two NATO allies agreed to create a safe zone inside Syria along its northeastern border with Turkey, that would be cleared of the PKK/YPG terror group.

Ankara says that the United States has stalled progress on setting up the safe zone and has demanded that Washington sever its relations with the terror group.

The operation, which would mark the third counter-terror operation into Syria in as many years, was first signalled by President Erdogan earlier this year.

"We entered Afrin, Jarablus, and Al-Bab. Now we will enter the east of the Euphrates," Erdogan said on Sunday during a motorway-opening ceremony. 

"We shared this with Russia and the United States."

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and the EU – has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children and infants. The YPG is the Syrian branch of the PKK terrorist group.

In 2017, the US, which considers the PKK a terrorist group, helped change the YPG’s name to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in order to dissociate it from the PKK.

TRT World's Hasan Abdullah has more on the story.