We are counting not the days but the hours until Türkiye launches its new operation in north Syria after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that Tal Rifaat and Manbij will be the targets.

These two areas, where Russia waved its flag, are on the west of the Euphrates and one of Türkiye’s red lines.

The presence of the People’s Protection Units (YPG)/Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Tal Rifaat and Manbij is contrary to the Sochi Agreement we signed with Russia.

Today, Russia’s withdrawal from the region, with its main focus on Ukraine, is leading to results in favor of Türkiye. Since we received reports that Russian units landed in Aleppo, we need to focus on Tal Rifaat and Manbij without leaving any voids.

As a result, the YPG/PKK will have no influence left in the west of the Euphrates—a critical threshold will be overcome.

Then, the only task remaining is to push away the U.S.-protected terrorists presenting a threat to Türkiye in the north of Syria and the east of the Euphrates 30 kilometers from Türkiye’s border.

The YPG/PKK terrorist organization continues to patrol in the east of the Euphrates with U.S. soldiers. Washington continues to declare the YPG/PKK terrorist organization as “reliable,” singing its praises. Furthermore, it seems “the U.S. established a safe one, not for us but the terrorist organization.”

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According to Türkiye, the Ankara Agreement then-U.S. Vice President Mike Pence signed in Ankara on Oct. 17, 2019, was terminated the day a photograph was revealed of a U.S. soldier and a terrorist patrolling arm-in-arm on Türkiye’s border. We saw once more on that day that the U.S. cannot be trusted.

But Türkiye is a country that is well aware of its strengths and limits—and it doesn’t seek adventure.

As long-term U.S. strategic goals and Türkiye’s security are never aligned, we endured the “actions” taken to resolve the issue through “peace” all the way to the end—just like in our agreement with Russia.

It seems that if we want something done right, we’ll have to do it ourselves. But this time, the international environment is more suitable for us.

We will close off the west of the Euphrates to the terrorist corridor by taking control over Manbij and Tal Rifaat, and unless the safe zone Türkiye demands is formed in the east, there is no rest for us.

Hence, the operation likely to launch today is not the end but only one of the stages.

I will make one more suggestion here: the Suleiman Shah Police Station in Karakozak, Türkiye’s only territory on the east coast of the Euphrates, outside its own borders, was unfortunately sacrificed for the “Eshme Spirit,” which was saluted by PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan!

The Suleiman Shah Police Station (tomb) was presented as a Daesh threat, and suddenly vacated overnight in February 2015. The tombs of Suleiman Shah and his two cavalries were moved to Eshme in Syria (an area under YPG/PKK control). We understood the error of this move in time.

The information revealed later showed us the criticality of the situation. It was revealed that U.S. authorities met with Turkish authorities in Ankara exactly seven times for the transfer of the Tomb of Suleiman Shah. Also, if you remember, back then, when it was said that the “Daesh threat exists,” they paved the way for establishing camps in the same area for the Marxist–Leninist Communist Party (MLKP) terrorist organization. In fact, the YPG/PKK positioned itself on the same line.

Following the move, any Turkish military operation in the area was out of the question. As you can understand, we were all fooled by a great big charade.

Now is the perfect time for us to transfer our ancestor Suleiman Shah’s tomb to its second eternal resting place in Karakozak.

I know that the people of Karakozak, comprised of Yuruks from Karakeçi who speak Arabic, are also waiting on tenterhooks for this move. This will also send a good message to the U.S., which failed to keep its promise to us in Manbij.

The Tomb of Suleyman Shah and Respect Police Station on the eastern coast of the Euphrates, on the peninsula facing the M4 highway, is Turkish territory. Moving it from Syria’s Eşme to Karakozak is also a sign of our intentions regarding the east of the Euphrates.