Baku hosts event in support of Turkey’s Afrin op

Turkey reportedly proposed jointly deploying USA and Turkish troops to Syria to ease tensions amid Turkey’s offensive.

The long-standing difference threatened to spill into the open when Erdogan warned that US troops around the Syrian town of Manbij, about 90 miles east of Afrin, would feel the sting of an “Ottoman slap” if they got in the way of Turkey’s troops there.

The operation “Olive Branch” was launched on January 20 to clear PYD/PKK and IS terrorists from Afrin in northwestern Syria, the Anadolu news agency reported.

The deal underscores the increasingly tangled battlefield in northern Syria, driven by a web of rivalries and alliances among Kurdish forces, the Syrian government, rebel factions, Turkey, the United States and Russian Federation.

During the visit of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Turkey, Turkish and American officials intend to take measures to normalise relations between Turkey and the United States, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a joint press conference with the US Secretary of State. “We are going to work together from this point forward. We are going to lock arms; we are going to work through the issues that are causing difficulties for us”, Tillerson said.

Turkey claims it never used chemical weapons in northern Syria’s Afrin region in light of accusations against it.

The U.S. Treasury does not now have any sanctions placed on any members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation coalition, which largely consists of European nations.

Such a broader conflict is seen in northern Syria between Turkey and the United States, while in southern Syria the conflict is growing between Israel and Iran.

“We have enough sources and capabilities to fight all kinds of terrorists, as long as no soldiers from our allied countries stand with them”, he also said. He said previous promises made to Turkey by the US were broken, but that the two sides had “reached an understanding to normalize our relationship again”.

Syrian Kurds, Arabs, and Syriacs demonstrate in the Kurdish town of Jandairis near the Syrian-Turkish border, and 18 kilometers southwest of Afrin, on February 6, 2018, in a show of solidarity with residents of the enclave against Turkey’s offensive.

Such rhetoric was absent on Friday and USA officials expressed hope that it would not resurface in the days after Tillerson’s visit, which followed a similar trip earlier this month by national security adviser H.R. McMaster.

A first meeting in line of this so-called mechanisms which consists of working groups will be held before mid-March, said the Turkish minister, adding that both parties have expectations of each other and will now work to normalize ties.

A State Department spokesperson refused to confirm whether Tillerson declined to use an American translator, or if so, why. That operation aimed to prevent the YPG from uniting the large region of northern Syria under their control with the exclave of Afrin.

Policymakers in Washington, meanwhile, are deeply alarmed by Turkey’s apparent determination to push ahead with the purchase of a Russian S-400 missile defence system, fuelling fears that Ankara is breaking away from its western moorings.