Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on Tuesday blasted the latest statement by U.S. Secretary of State in which Washington expressed its “deep concern” for the situation in Syria’s Afrin following the success of Turkey’s Operation Olive Branch.
Referring to U.S. support for the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)’s Syrian offshoot, the PYD, Çavuşoğlu said, “Civilians in Afrin are happy, why is the U.S. uneasy? The PKK is threatening the U.S.”
Operation Olive Branch was initiated on Jan. 20 in Afrin to establish security and stability, eliminate PKK/KCK/PYD-YPG and Daesh terrorists, and save locals from their oppression and cruelty.
Afrin has been a major hideout for the PYD/PKK since July 2012, when the Assad regime in Syria left the city to the terror group without putting up a fight.
The U.S has supplied the PKK/PYD terror organization with more than 5,000 truckloads of weapons to allegedly use in the fight against Daesh, despite Ankara’s warnings that the group is the Syrian offshoot of the PKK terror organization.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States. The PKK has been conducting armed violence in the southeastern part of Turkey since 1984. More than 40,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the three-decade long conflict.
