Turkey used chemical weapons on Kurds

Armand2REP

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Kurdish YPG: Turkish army hit village in Syria's Afrin with suspected gas

By REUTERS


February 17, 2018 01:42

A spokesman for the Kurdish YPG militia in Afrin told Reuters that a Turkish bombardment caused six people to suffer breathing problems and other symptoms indicative of a gas attack.

BEIRUT - Syrian Kurdish forces and a monitoring group said the Turkish military carried out a suspected gas attack that wounded six people in Syria's Afrin region on Friday.

There was no immediate comment from the Turkish military, which has previously denied accusations of hitting civilians in its Afrin operation.

Birusk Hasaka, a spokesman for the Kurdish YPG militia in Afrin, told Reuters that Turkish bombardment hit a village in the northwest of the region, near the Turkish border. He said it caused six people to suffer breathing problems and other symptoms indicative of a gas attack.


Turkey launched an air and ground offensive last month on the Afrin region, opening a new front in the multi-sided Syrian war to target Kurdish fighters in northern Syria.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Reuters that Turkish forces and their Syrian insurgent allies hit the village on Friday with shells. The Britain-based war monitoring group said medical sources in Afrin reported that six people in the attack suffered breathing difficulties and dilated pupils, indicating a suspected gas attack.

Syrian state news agency SANA, citing a doctor in a Afrin hospital, said Turkish shelling of the village caused choking in six people.

On Feb. 6, the United Nations called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Syria.

Since the onset of the conflict in 2011, the YPG and its allies have set up three autonomous cantons in the north, including Afrin. Their sphere of influence expanded as they seized territory from Islamic State with US help, though Washington opposes their autonomy plans as does the Syrian government.

US support for Kurdish-led forces in Syria has infuriated Ankara, which views them as a security threat along its frontier. Turkey sees the YPG as terrorists and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that has waged a three-decade insurgency on Turkish soil.

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Ku...age-in-Syrias-Afrin-with-suspected-gas-542843

 
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Armand2REP

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Syrian Kurdish official: deal for Syrian army to enter Afrin
Ellen Francis
February 18, 2018 / 1:03 PM / Updated 22 minutes ago

EIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian Kurdish forces and the Damascus government have reached an agreement for the Syrian army to enter the Afrin region to help repel a Turkish offensive, a senior Kurdish official said on Sunday.

Badran Jia Kurd, an adviser to the Kurdish-led administration in north Syria, told Reuters army troops would deploy along some border positions and could enter the region within the next two days.

The agreement underscores the increasingly tangled situation in northern Syria, driven by a web of rivalries and alliances among Kurdish forces, the Syrian government, rebel groups, Turkey, the United States and Russia.

The complex relationship between the Damascus government and the Syrian Kurds, which each holds more territory than any other side in the war, will be pivotal in how the war unfolds.

Turkey launched an offensive in Afrin last month against the Kurdish YPG militia, viewing it as a terrorist group with links to an armed insurrection in Turkey.

Ankara’s NATO ally the United States has armed the YPG as part of an alliance it supports in Syria against Islamic State. But while Washington has a military presence in the much larger area of Syria the YPG and its allies control further east, it has not given any support to the YPG in Afrin.

“We can cooperate with any side that lends us a helping hand in light of the barbaric crimes and the international silence,” Jia Kurd said.

Although Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government and the YPG have mostly avoided direct conflict during the war, there have been occasional armed clashes and they espouse utterly different visions for Syria’s future.

While both have at times suggested a long-term agreement between them might be possible, Assad has more recently said he wants to take back the whole country.

Jia Kurd said the agreement reached with Damascus was purely military and that no wider political arrangements had been made yet.

“When it comes to the political and administrative matters in the region, it will be agreed upon with Damascus in the later stages through direct negotiations and discussions,” he said.

OPPOSITION
He added that there was opposition to the deal that could prevent it being implemented: “We don’t know to what extent these understandings will last because there are sides that are not satisfied and want to make (the understandings) fail.”

Turkey began its direct intervention in northern Syria in August 2016, backing Syrian rebel groups in a military offensive to push Islamic State from its border and to stop the YPG linking Afrin to the other areas it controls further east.

It has said it could expand its assault to those areas and last week renewed its demands for the YPG to pull out of all areas of Syria west of the Euphrates.

Since October, it has also had a role in the rebel-held Idlib province that borders Afrin as part of a diplomatic process pushed by Assad’s ally Russia via talks in Astana, Kazakhstan.

A Kurdish political official familiar with the negotiations for the Syrian army to enter Afrin said it was possible Russia would object to the agreement as complicating its own diplomatic efforts with Turkey.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-for-syrian-army-to-enter-afrin-idUSKCN1G20QB
 
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Haldiram

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What is the future of EU Turkey relations?
Like all Muslim nations, they have become a pariah in Europe. Turkey wants to become a part of EU, but EU doesn't want to have open visa-free access to EU nations. Germany is at the forefront of this opposition. They have publicaly threatened to leave the EU if Turkey is allowed. They even banned Erdogan from holding rallies for Turkish expats in Germany.

Turkey is a dhobi ka kutta. They are in NATO but they are also in the 'West is anti-Mislim' bandwagon. They pick fights with Russia but they are also working on a framework to buy Russian oil and Russia was to set up nuclear power stations in Turkey. This was cancelled after Turkey shot down the first Russian plane in Syria.

They send weapons into Gaza but also have some sort of understanding with the Israeli deep state over their joint hatred for Syria's Assad.
 

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