Damascus does not want a "security zone" in northern Syria. Syrian state media reported on Thursday (August 8th) that Damascus "flatly" rejects the agreement between the United States and Turkey to establish a joint operations center in the region to create a buffer zone in the near future.
On Wednesday, Ankara and Washington decided to establish a "joint operations center" to coordinate the creation of a "security zone" in northern Syria, a measure aimed at preventing a clash between Turkish and Kurdish forces.
"Syrian aggression against Syrian sovereignty"
"Syria categorically rejects the agreement of the two US and Turkish occupiers on the creation of what is called a security zone," the official Sana news agency quoted a source at the Syrian Foreign Ministry as saying. "The agreement constitutes a blatant aggression against Syrian sovereignty and territorial unity and a violation of the principles of international law."
"Syria calls on the international community and the United Nations to condemn this US-Turkish aggression, which constitutes a dangerous escalation (...) and undermines all efforts to find an outlet for the Syrian crisis," added the diplomatic source quoted as saying. by Sana.
The announcement Wednesday of the US-Turkish agreement came after three days of intense negotiations between Ankara and Washington, which seeks to avoid a new Turkish military operation against the People's Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia that controls areas of northern Syria.
On Thursday, Damascus accused the Syrian Kurds of being a "tool" in this "American-Turkish" hostile project, claiming that the latter "bear historical responsibility in this regard". The Syrian authorities are calling on the Kurds to "revise their accounts and return to the national fold," added Sana.
Ankara loses patience
Turkey has increased in recent days the threat of intervention against Kurdish positions in northern Syria.
On Tuesday again, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that, without agreement, he would launch "soon" an operation.
The Kurds, an ethnic minority long marginalized in Syria, created a semi-autonomous zone in the north of the country thanks to the Syrian conflict, unleashed in 2011.
Ankara has an unfavorable view of this autonomy project at its border, fearing that a core Kurdish state will galvanize the separatist desires of this minority on its own soil. As for the Syrian regime, it seeks to reconquer all of its territory and refuses Kurdish autonomy.
With AFP