Erdogan says Turkey to secure east of Euphrates in Syria

Turkey aims to secure control of the region of northern Syria east of the Euphrates river, removing the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia from the area, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday. Speaking at the opening of parliament, Erdogan said Ankara also aimed to clear Iraq’s Sinjar and Qandil regions of Kurdish militants, Reuters reported. Ankara regards the YPG as a terrorist organization, closely tied to the militant PKK which has fought a decades-old insurgency in southeast Turkey. Late September, Erdogan said that Turkey will take action east of the Euphrates river in Syria and impose secure zones as it has done in the northwest of the country. Earlier this year, Ankara carried out a military operation to seize control of Syria’s Afrin region from the Kurdish YPG militia. Before the Afrin operation, Turkey carried out a cross-border operation “Euphrates Shield,” which targeted both the YPG and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) east of Afrin.