Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s spokesman, İbrahim Kalın, said on Thursday that Turkey would not hesitate to carry out a military operation in Syria’s Afrin region, which is under the control of Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia.
Turkey views the YPG as the Syrian extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
During an interview with the state-run TRT TV, Kalın said: “Syria and Iraq were overwhelmingly on our agenda. There is an ongoing Astana process in which Turkey, Iran and Russia are working together. We have some disagreements [with Iran] on the current state and future of the [Bashar] al-Assad regime.”