While Turkey continues operation Euphrates Shield with successful advances in northern Syria, the Shah Fırat Operation is now being re-evaluated by experts in Ankara.
Prior to that operation to relocate the tomb of Süleyman Shah, Turkish and U.S. officials had met seven times to discuss the ongoing situation around the tomb.
According to diplomatic sources, Turkish officials had been convinced over the relocation of the tomb after four meetings.
In early 2015, Turkey moved the tomb from its original location near the Kara Cossacks Bridge in northern Syria 27 kilometers from the Turkish border to a new site in Syria, about 180 meters from the Turkish border and just north of the Syrian village of Ashme.
On the night of February 21, 2015, a convoy of 572 Turkish troops in 39 tanks and 57 armored vehicles entered Syria and evacuated the 38-man Turkish military garrison guarding the Süleyman Shah tomb and the remains of Süleyman Shah.
The new location of the site in Syria closer to the Turkish border remains as Turkish territory under the treaty of Lausanne and approximately 40 Turkish soldiers guard the tomb.
The Turkish government has stated that the relocation is temporary, and that it does not constitute any change to the status of the tomb.
Experts says the relocation of the tomb was a trick of the U.S. authority to clear the area allowing PKK/PYD terror groups for establishing a canton area in Syria along the border with Turkey.
In the first three meetings with the U.S. officials, Turkey's bureaucrats from the Prime Ministry and the Foreign Ministry had expressed Ankara's stance against the operation.
But the U.S. delegation continued to insist that Ankara proceeds with the operation, by providing information that the Daesh terrorist group was devising an attack on the tomb.
In the fourth meeting on November 14, 2014, satellite footage disclosed some Daesh nests around the tomb and Ankara started seeking a solution for the situation.
More than 18 months later, now it is clear that the Shah Fırat Operation was a U.S. scheme to evacuate Turkey's presence, allowing PYD/PKK to create a canton in the area.
Now, it is understood that the U.S. has stationed Daesh terrorists near the tomb to convince the Turkish authority to carry out the operation.
Moreover, at the same time PKK/YPG terrorists had intensified their activities in the area. Even the MLKP terror group, which had not been active in Turkey for several years, had established camps from the Syrian village of Esmah to Karakozak area.
Even after all these developments, Ankara was planning to attack Daesh on three different scenarios; to clean the border area in Syria from Daesh terrorists and establish a safe zone, to protect the Jarabulus-Maraa line from a probable move of the PYD/PKK and to relocate Syrian refugees into the safe zone.
But the U.S. tricks and the pro-FETÖ commanders inside the Turkish military had sabotaged the plan and forced Turkey to a fourth plan.
In the context of all these situations and development, Turkey had agreed to launch the operation; thus, the PKK corridor in northern Syria had been opened with the direct involvement of the U.S.
After reviewing the chain of events over Turkey's border, an opinion was voiced from one of the experts.
Since the area of the tomb of Süleyman Shah, the grandfather of Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman Empire, is a legal territory of Turkey inside Syria, Ankara should relocate the tomb to the previous place and protect it in any cost, said Prof.Dr. Tufan Gündüz from Hacettepe University Türkiyat Research Institute.
