Attacked Arab League .. Erdogan vows to prevent the escape of fighters of the Islamic State

The influx of Syrian refugees, violence and instability has pushed his country to the limit. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan began his article in the Wall Street Journal in explaining the reasons for the "spring of peace" operation in northern Syria.

Erdogan says that since the start of the Syrian war in 2011, no country has felt more pain in the ensuing humanitarian crisis than in Turkey.

"Our culture of hospitality has entailed the burden of hosting millions of war victims, with very little help from the international community," he said.

"But at some point Turkey has reached its limit and our government has repeatedly warned that we will not be able to prevent refugees from flowing to the West without international financial support." Yet these warnings have not been heeded as governments, eager to avoid responsibility, have portrayed what was to be seen as a threat.

Consequently, the government concluded that the international community would not act "and therefore we developed a plan for northern Syria that we shared with world leaders at the UN General Assembly last month."

In line with that plan, the president said that Turkey last week launched a "spring of peace" operation to end the humanitarian crisis and "address the violence and instability that are the root causes of irregular migration in our region."

In the absence of an alternative plan to deal with the refugee crisis, the Turkish president said, "The international community must either join our efforts or start accepting refugees."

As part of Operation Spring of Peace, Erdogan says, the Turkish army and the Syrian National Army will remove all terrorist elements in northeastern Syria because these militants are preventing Syrian refugees, including 300,000 Kurds, from returning home.

Therefore, the president says, "our mission combines simultaneously fighting the PKK, the terrorist organization, and the Syrian militias affiliated with the Islamic State".

Erdogan noted that Turkey has no rivalry with any ethnic or religious group and that all the citizens of the Syrian Arab Republic, who do not belong to terrorist groups, are equal, "but we are particularly opposed to the PKK equation with Syrian Kurds. , Who killed thousands of innocent people, with Islam. " Turkey will ensure that ISIL fighters do not return to northeastern Syria. "We are ready to cooperate with source countries and international organizations in rehabilitating the spouses and children of terrorist fighters."

`` The same countries that are lecturing Turkey about the virtues of fighting IS today failed yesterday to stop the flow of foreign terrorist fighters in 2014 and 2015, '' he said. Perhaps the government of a particular European state, I would not call, would like to explain to the world how one of its citizens was able to board a plane to Istanbul in 2014 with live ammunition in his checked bag. Similarly, France banned arms sales to Turkey, but why ignore our repeated early warnings about the imminent terrorist attacks?

Erdogan said members of the League of Arab States, who described Turkey's operation in northern Syria as an invasion, should answer some questions. In the efforts to end the humanitarian crisis in Syria? What political initiatives have they supported to stop the civil war? So the Arab League, whose statements do not reflect the true views and feelings of the Arab people, has no legitimacy. "

"The international community has missed its chance to prevent the Syrian crisis from dragging an entire region into a quagmire of instability. Many countries have been forced to deal with the side effects of the conflict, including irregular migration and the escalation of terrorist attacks," he said. Ending proxy wars in Syria and restoring peace and stability in the region, concluding that the EU and the world must support Turkey in what it is trying to do.