Turkish PM confirms strikes on Syrian Kurdish militia, demands it withdraw

Turkish forces on February 13 shelled a Syrian air base and a village that Kurdish fighters captured recently from Islamist militants, activists said.

A Kurdish official confirmed the shelling of Menagh air base in the northern Aleppo countryside, which he said had been captured by the Kurdish-allied Jaysh al-Thuwwar group rather than the Kurdish YPG militia.

But now for the first time, in the face of the Turkish state restarting the war against the Kurds, it has been made a decision to call a national demonstration under the slogan “Break The Silence”, as this brutal attack is unreported in the United Kingdom press, and Stop Turkeys War on the Kurds, as we will be demanding the United Kingdom govt puts pressure on Turkey to stop these attacks and return to the negotiations for a peaceful settlement with the Kurdish Movement began with the PKK, the Kurdish liberation movement.

Turkey says the YPG is affiliated with the Kurdish PKK movement, which has waged a long and bloody insurgency in southeast Turkey.

The Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, announced this week that the kingdom was ready to send troops on the ground in Syria as part of the coalition antidjihadistes.

The shelling was retaliation under Turkish military rules of engagement after the PYD and forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad opened fire on Turkish military outposts on the border, a security official told Reuters.

“We can if necessary take the same measures in Syria as we took in Iraq and Qandil”, Davutoglu said in a televised speech.

The US, however, supports the YPG in the fight against the so-called “Islamic State” group.

The state-run Anadolu Agency quotes Davutoglu as demanding that YPG fighters leave the Syrian town of Azaz and withdraw from the Mannag air base which was captured earlier this week.

Turkey fears the creation of an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria – similar to the Kurdish region in northern Iraq – would spur the separatist ambitions of Turkey’s own Kurds.

“We will help our brothers in Aleppo with all means at our disposal”.

Ahrar ash-Sham is a militant group that has trained teenagers to commit acts of terror in Damascus, Homs, and Latakia provinces, according to data provided to the Russian Defense Ministry by Syrian opposition forces. “We will take those in need but we will never allow Aleppo to be emptied through an ethnic massacre”, he said.

And the fact control the Kurdish forces gives a base for new offensives against the jihadist group Islamic State (EI) further towards the east.