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Turkish army to lay siege to Afrin city center soon: Erdogan

20 February 2018 10:27 (UTC +04:00)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said the country’s army would lay siege to Syria’s Afrin city center in the coming days, APA reported citing Anadolu Agency.

Addressing the Justice and Development (AK) Party's parliamentary group meeting, Erdogan said Turkey entered Syria's Afrin region "to make the region livable and secure".

The president said the "lasting" security of the region was of "utmost" importance for Turkey.

"Afrin city center will be besieged in the coming days," he said. "So that the external aid coming to the city and the region gets cut."

Erdogan highlighted that Turkey would make its red lines clear to everyone.

The Turkish president once again stressed that the U.S. has provided the PYD-YPG with arms and equipment loaded on 5,000 trucks and 2,000 aircraft.

“They tend to deny these, but when we show them photos and footage they say the problem will be solved in 3-5 days, 3-5 weeks. We will continue our operations in the field, aside from negotiations. Yesterday we had a telephone conversation with the presidents of Russia and Iran. Turkey has to pursue a multilateral policy in any situation,” he added.

Erdogan noted that 1,715 terrorists have been neutralized since the beginning of the Operation Olive Branch in Syria’s Afrin province. He added that 32 Turkish servicemen were martyred fighting to neutralize terrorists.

Qamishli is one of the main strongholds of the PYD / YPG terrorist organization in northern Syria. The Turkmen city, Tell Abyad, is currently under controlled by PYD / YPG. There are U.S. military bases in Qamishli and Tell Abyad.

On Jan. 20, Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch to clear YPG/PKK-Daesh terrorists from Afrin.

According to the Turkish General Staff, the operation aims to establish security and stability along Turkey’s borders and the region as well as protect Syrians from oppression and cruelty of terrorists.