Turkey Begins Military Offensive Against Kurds In Syria After Trump's Controversial Policy Shift

Turkish military forces have begun an offensive targeting Kurdish forces in northern Syria, taking advantage of a controversial decision by Donald Trump earlier this week to order American forces to withdraw from the area and not stand in the way of Turkish forces.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said warplanes have started to carry out air strikes on civilian areas sparking huge panic among people.

Ankara has said it intends to create a safe zone in order to return millions of refugees to Syrian soil, but the incursion also seeks to remove what it deems the terrorist threat posed by Kurdish fighters in the area.

Announcing the offensive on Twitter, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the operation has been named Peace Spring.

It is being conducted alongside the Syrian National Army, a group that has fought against the Syrian government during countrys long and brutal civil war.

Turkey later said its ground forces have crossed the border into northern Syria.

The Turkish Armed Forces, together with the Syrian National Army, just launched #OperationPeaceSpring against PKK/YPG and Daesh terrorists in northern Syria. Our mission is to prevent the creation of a terror corridor across our southern border, and to bring peace to the area.

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The Turkish Armed Forces, together with the Syrian National Army, just launched #OperationPeaceSpring against PKK/YPG and Daesh terrorists in northern Syria. Our mission is to prevent the creation of a terror corridor across our southern border, and to bring peace to the area.
Recep Tayyip Erdoan (@RTErdogan) October 9, 2019

Trump later said the US does not endorse Turkeys assault, and called the operation a bad idea as Natos secretary-general urged Turkey not to further destabilise the region through military action.

The UKs foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said Turkeys incursion risks destabilising the region, exacerbating humanitarian suffering and undermining the progress made against Daesh, which should be our collective focus.

After a call between Trump and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the leaders expressed their serious concern at Turkeys invasion and the risk of a humanitarian catastrophe in the region, a Downing Street spokesperson said.

BACKGROUND

The Kurds are an ethnic group some 40 million strong , scattered across Turkey , Iran , Iraq and Syria but without their own country.

They have long fought for an independent state, but their host countries have resisted, particularly Turkey which has even gone so far as to ban the Kurdish language in an attempt to suppress their ethnic identity.

This struggle has at time manifested into open war, and in 1978, some Kurds formed a militant wing called the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in order to fight these battles.

Despite the terrorist designation, Kurdish fighters among them PKK members have been staunch allies of the US in the fight against the so-called Islamic State (Isis) in Syria.

After Syria descended into civil war after the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, Isis gained a strong foothold in the country, and western nations and Kurdish forces were successful in largely driving them out of the country.

The Kurds now control a large area of northern Syria along the border with Turkey, and it is this that has made Ankara nervous.