A consensus between Turkey and Iran was reached in order to foil U.S.-Israeli-backed plans intending to turn Syria’s Raqqa into a capital for Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists, and clear the Sinjar-Qandil-Raqqa axis from terrorists.
Turkey and Iran are determined to increase cooperation in order to counter U.S.-Israel efforts designed to carve up Syrian and Iraqi territories.
“The United States, stationed east of the Euphrates River, is after dividing Syria. But what is certain is that the United States will fail in this regard. In the near future, we will witness the advance of government and popular forces in Syria and east of the Euphrates, and the liberation of Raqqa city,” top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Akbar Velayati said from Beirut, giving the clearest message regarding the Raqqa operation.
Following the total elimination of Daesh in Deir Ez-zor on Syria’s border with Iraq, Iranian-backed regime forces, along with Shiite militias have begun preparations to launch an operation in Raqqa.
Iraqi forces and al-Hashd al-Shaabi militias on Friday captured the city of al-Qaim near the Syrian border from the Daesh terrorist group after a joint operation.
Last month, al-Qaim became the last Daesh-held Iraq-Syria border crossing after Iraqi forces retook the al-Walid and Rabia crossings, respectively located in Anbar and the Nineveh province.
Members of the Syrian army are said to have taken part in the operation to retake al-Qaim from Daesh, sending 500 troops to fight alongside the Iraqi army, marking the first incident where the regime army has taken part in a cross-border operation since the beginning of the 7-year-old civil war in 2011.
Following the operation, Tehran has set its sights on Raqqa and sat at the table with Turkey, which offered to clear the Sinjar- Qandil axis from PKK terrorists in cooperation between the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) and the Iraqi army, in return for launching an operation to eliminate the PKK presence in Raqqa with Turkey’s backing.
Turkey’s answer was that its priorities in Syria were Afrin, Tal Abyad and Manbij.
Following the negotiations, a consensus was reached which made the launch of an operation in Sinjar and Qandil all but certain, leading to speculation whether it will only be limited to northern Iraq, in light of Turkey’s response to the support requested by Iran for a possible Raqqa operation.
In addition to clearing both Sinjar and Qandil, terror hotbeds in northern Syria are also among the targets of the TAF, whose troops in Idlib could simultaneously launch an operation in Syria’s Afrin.
