Turkey's military operation in Syria's northeast aims at protecting local residents from the terror threat, ensuring Syria's territorial integrity and promoting safe refugee return, Turkish Ambassador to Russia Mehmet Samsar said in an interview with Sputnik
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th October, 2019) Turkey's military operation in Syria's northeast aims at protecting local residents from the terror threat, ensuring Syria's territorial integrity and promoting safe refugee return, Turkish Ambassador to Russia Mehmet Samsar said in an interview with Sputnik.
"In the face of terror threats, we launched on October 9 the Operation Peace Spring. The main goal of this operation is to put an end to terrorist activities, originating in Syria and jeopardizing our country's security, as well as to neutralize regional terrorists. The second [goal] is to ensure Syria's territorial integrity and unity. And the third goal, naturally, is to save Syrians from terrorists' oppression and violence. And, of course, to ensure safe and reliable return of the people who have been forced to leave their homes due to terrorists' actions," Samsar said.
He noted that the Kurdish militia, labeled as terrorists by Ankara, had conducted over 320 attacks against Turkey and Syrians living in areas to the west of the Euphrates River.
The ambassador also accused the Kurdish militia of releasing members of the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia) so that they crossed into Turkey and staged attacks there.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, signed on October 22 a memorandum on joint actions toward settling the situation in northeast Syria, where Ankara launched its offensive targeted against the IS and the Kurdish militia.
