• Erdogan: "The world supports us or we take refugees"
  • Syria, Di Maio: devastating effects on the humanitarian level. Turkey stops immediately
  • Syria, EU: unanimous condemnation of Turkey but no arms embargo
  • Syria, Turkish raids on a convoy of foreign reporters. Trump orders the withdrawal of 1,000 soldiers

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16 October 2019Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the only option for Kurdish militants in Syria is to lay down their arms and withdraw. "Our position is the following: immediately, tonight, that all the terrorists lay down their weapons and equipment, destroy all their fortifications and withdraw from the security zone that we have set," said Erdogan in a speech before the deputies of the his AKP party, adding that this would be "the fastest way to solve the problem in Syria".

"In its history, Turkey has never carried out massacres of civilians and does not even now" in its military offensive against the Kurdish militias in northern Syria, the Turkish president said in a speech to the parliamentary group of his AKP in Ankara, thus rejecting the accusations regarding the Kurds and some NGOs.

Assad's forces enter US bases
Syrian government forces occupied abandoned US military bases in the northeast. This is reported by the TV channel Rossiya 24, broadcasting images from Syria. "This video speaks for itself: military pickups under the Syrian flag and US armored convoys moving across from one another in opposite directions."

"The video - says the broadcaster - was recorded near the city of Kobane, which the US military left in a hurry, just like in the rest of northeastern Syria". "the government forces of the Syrian Arab republic have moved north and have taken control of several populated places, the tabqa airport and the military bases abandoned by the soldiers of the Western coalition", the issuer continues, showing the images of the armored vehicles of the Russian military police on the streets of Manbij, welcomed by the local population. continue to emerge then videos shot on the US military base. images transmitted by the Anna header show the abandoned structures of the base.

Observatory: 71 civilians killed and over 300,000 displaced
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has stated that 71 civilians, including 21 children, have been killed in the offensive launched on Wednesday, October 9th. According to the London-based NGO, more than 300,000 people have been forced to leave your home since the beginning of the conflict. On Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the start of the offensive
against the Kurdish forces that control the northeastern regions of Syria to create a "safe zone" in which to host at least one million Syrian refugees, a few days after the United States announced the partial withdrawal of the forces present in the area. Turkey accuses the People's Protection Units (Ypg) and the Kurdish-Arab alliance of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) of which they are part of being linked to the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), considered a terrorist organization also by United States and European Union. In recent days the Sdf have reached an agreement with the central government of Damascus and, which led to the entry of the Syrian army into the Kurdish territories to defend them from the Turkish forces.