16 more villages where cleared from YPG by Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and Free Syrian Army (FSA).
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had mentioned in his speach yesterday that, Afrin would have been captured in a very short span of time if Turkey had set aside its conscience, morals and principles as terrorists and some countries do.
Erdoğan also said: “However, we are very sensitive. We know very well how Homs, Aleppo, and Damascus’ slums, Daraa, Raqqa, Hama, Deir ez-Zor and Idlib have been razed to the ground in Syria. We have seen these. They have done these mercilessly. We know very well how the barrel bombs have been dropped. What is more, we are aware of the fact that the destruction and loss of lives in these cities cannot be explained only with clashes and there are other intentions. But we have never and will never will be like them. Because of our religion and culture, we can never aim at destruction and annihilation.”
President Erdoğan continued: “I am calling hereby: Hey NATO, where are you? We are putting up this much struggle. Is Turkey not a member of NATO? You had immediately invited NATO members to Afghanistan. How about in Syria? In Syria, countries which are NATO members will blatantly rise against us if they were strong enough? Yet, they cannot dare to do so since they see that Turkey stands tall. Our request was as the following: You called us to Afghanistan and we came. You called us to Somalia and we came. You called us to the Balkans and we came. And now I am calling you to Syria; why aren’t you coming? Turkey, which has a 911-km-long border with Syria, is under threat right now. Why aren’t you coming? Am I to tell names? Come! Be fair! Fine words butter no parsnips, we don’t believe in these any more. Be sincere, be honest! Do you part!”
President Erdoğan further stressed: “Those, who claim to raise hell about human rights, don’t utter a word against the human rights violations perpetrated by the separatist terrorist organization. Those, who claim to raise hell about the rights of children, women and civilians in conflict zones, become blind and deaf towards Syria and Iraq. That is so because they actually don’t care about the notions and values they talk about. Their only cause is to advance their own interests and make use of any tool to this end. They only care about our region’s oil, gas and resources. They don’t even refrain from using terrorists to this end.”
Source: www.tccb.gov.tr
