Erdogan threatens military action in Syria

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that his country will soon launch an “air and ground military operation” east of the Euphrates River in northeastern Syria, prompting the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to promise “all-out war” if they face an unprovoked attack.

Ankara has accused the U.S. of not doing enough to expel Syrian Kurdish fighters from the border region and could take matters into their own hands “as soon as today or tomorrow,” Erdogan said.

The U.S.-backed SDF, led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), said it wanted stability but would not hesitate to respond to an attack.

Erdogan’s announcement came just two days after U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and his Turkish counterpart, Hulusi Akar, discussed tensions in the region.

Turkey views the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged an insurgency against Turkey for 35 years. Ankara and Washington consider the PKK a terror group but they diverge on the issue of the YPG, which forms the core of U.S.-backed Syrian forces against ISIS and is loosely linked with the SDF.

Via Fox News