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Ankara says will resume operation in Syria if Kurdish units stay in border areas

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that his country wanted to "get rid of the terrorist threat"

© EPA-EFE/YURI KOCHETKOV

ANKARA, November 18. /TASS/. Turkey will resume its Peace Spring trans-border operation in Syria in case the Kurdish Self-Defense Forces fail to withdraw their units from the Turkish-Syrian border, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday.

"The United States and Russia have failed to take necessary steps (under the agreements with Ankara - TASS). If the territories are not cleared [of Kurdish units], we will resume the operation," the Yeni Safak newspaper quoted him as saying.

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US seeks to prevent Damascus, Kurds from improving relations — Assad

The top diplomat stressed that his country wanted to "get rid of the terrorist threat."

On October 9, Turkey launched a military incursion into northern Syria, codenaming it Operation Peace Spring, with the Turkish Armed Forces and the Ankara-backed Free Syrian Army carrying it out. Ankara claimed that its goal is to clear the border area of what it calls ‘terrorists’ (Turkey’s broad label of the Kurdish forces) and establish a 30 km-long buffer zone in Syria’s north, where Syrian refugees from Turkey would resettle. Syria’s SANA news agency slammed the operation as an act of aggression and the world community condemned Ankara’s actions.

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