Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chairman Devlet Bahçeli on Tuesday said he is ready to go to and die in the Afrin region of Syria if necessary, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
“If it becomes necessary I can go to the front in Afrin. If it becomes necessary I can sacrifice my life for this nation. This is my promise,” Bahçeli said during an MHP group meeting at Parliament.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Jan. 28 said he would go to the Afrin region of Syria if necessary and called on people to follow him.
“If needed, I, the top commander, would be the first one to go to Afrin. You would then follow me,” said Erdoğan during a Justice and Development Party (AKP) congress in Amasya province.
The Turkish military and Free Syrian Army fighters on Jan. 20 launched Operation Olive Branch in Afrin against the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which Turkey sees as the Syrian extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
President Erdoğan on Oct. 8 said Turkey would not allow a Kurdish corridor in Syria extending along the Turkish border to the Mediterranean.