ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey will not hesitate to take countermeasures if Kurdish-led groups in northern Syria that Ankara accuses of having ties to outlawed Kurdish militants go ahead with plans to hold local elections in the region, the Turkish president said Thursday.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Arab Republic, which controls northern and eastern Syria, has announced plans to hold municipal elections on June 11. Voting to choose mayors will take place in Hasakah, Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor and eastern Aleppo provinces.
Turkey, which has launched military operations in Syria before, sees the latest move as a step by Syrian Kurdish militants to cross the border and establish an independent Kurdish state. Turkey argues that the planned elections are a threat to the territorial integrity of both Syria and Turkey.
“We are closely monitoring the aggressive actions of terrorist organizations against our country and Syria’s territorial integrity under the pretext of elections,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after inspecting military exercises in western Turkey.
“Turkey will never allow separatist groups to establish (a terrorist state) just across our southern border in Syria and northern Iraq,” he said.
Turkey considers the Kurdish militia, known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a terrorist organisation with ties to the banned Kurdish organisations that have led an insurgency against Turkey since 1984. Tens of thousands have been killed in that conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
But the YPG forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a key US ally in the fight against Islamic State. US support for the SDF has infuriated Turkey and is a major source of conflict in relations between the two countries.
Turkey has been conducting a series of military operations in Syria since 2016 to drive Syrian Kurdish militias from the border, where they control large swaths of territory in the north. Turkish leaders have frequently spoken of plans to establish a 30-kilometer (18-mile) safe zone along the Syria-Iraq border, where the PKK has a stronghold, to defend the border.
“We have faced a fait accompli and done what was necessary so far. If we encounter the same situation again, we will not hesitate to act,” Erdogan said. “As far as the territorial integrity of our country is concerned, we will not listen to anyone and will not succumb to any threats.”
