ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Pervin Buldan, Co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), said on Tuesday that one of the pillars of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party is war, adding that Ankara plans to carry out a fresh military operation against the Syrian Kurds in March.
Turkey is expected to hold presidential and general elections in mid-May but the exact date will be confirmed in early March. The vote is seen as the most significant in two decades as it will determine the fate of Erdogan’s rule.
Speaking to her party’s lawmakers on Tuesday, Buldan said that the alliance between Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development and its far-right ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) is based on two pillars: “political conspiracies” and “policy of war.”
“It is no longer a secret that they are preparing to launch a new operation against Syria after the election decision becomes final in early March because they do not have any promises they can make to the public during the elections… They want to cover up the hunger and poverty they have caused to society with the politics of war,” she was cited by her party as saying.
Turkey has carried out three military campaigns against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) since 2016. Ankara also launched an aerial offensive against the same force in Syria on November 20. As a result, Turkish forces and its Syrian mercenaries have occupied the Kurdish cities of Afrin, Sari Kani (Ras al-Ain) and Gire Spi (Tal Abyad).
Ankara claims that the People’s Protection Units (YPG), backbone of the US-allied SDF, is the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) - armed group struggling for the increased rights of Kurds but listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey.
Mazloum Abdi, General Commander of the SDF, told al-Monitors on January 14 that Turkey is planning to invade the Kurdish city of Kobane in northern Syria in February.
The international community, especially the US which has nearly a thousand fighters in northeast Syria (Rojava), has opposed any potential military operation by Turkey in Syria, saying it will further escalate tensions in the war-torn country.
Turkish officials, including Erdogan, have repeatedly threatened that a new military operation against Syrian Kurds could be launched any time.
