MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Ankara and Damascus may conduct a joint military operation in Syria against Kurdish rebel forces if they refuse to lay down their arms, Turkish newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Turkiye’s conflict with the PKK started in 1984 and resumed in 2015. Turkiye launched operations Olive Branch and Peace Spring in Syria in 2018 and 2019, and Operation Claw-Lock in Iraq in 2022 despite protests from Damascus and Baghdad. Ankara, which sees PKK as a terrorist group, insisted that the operations aimed at protecting its borders from security threats posed by Kurdish militia.
Syria’s armed opposition captured Damascus on December 8. Russian officials said that Syrian President Bashar Assad stepped down after negotiations with participants in the Syrian conflict and left Syria for Russia, where he was granted asylum. Mohammed al-Bashir, who ran an Idlib-based administration formed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other opposition groups, was named interim prime minister on December 10. He announced that an interim government had been formed and would remain in place until March 2025.
*A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.
