​Akar and Erdogan warn on safe zone

TURKEY - In Brief 02 Oct 2019 by Atilla Yesilada

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At the inauguration ceremonies of the Grand Assembly, Defense Minister retired General Hulusi Akar and President Erdogan reiterated in very forceful and clear words that Turkey has run out of patience in delayign tactics in establishing a safe zone in North East Syria.“Time is near to take matters in hand”, said both in their own words. I emphasize again that these threats must be taken seriously because bluffing on such a serious matter when all the cards are laid face up on the poker table makes no sense.Readers ought to assign at least 50% probability to some type of a Turkish incursion into Kurdish domain in Syria which would infuriate the Congress invoking sanctions threats. Pro-AKP daily Sabah published comments by Akar and Erdogan as follows: Akar:“Turkey's National Defense Minister expressed discontent with efforts to establish a safe zone in northern Syria Tuesday, saying that there was absolutely no time to waste”. Erdogan:“We can strike at the dark of the night suddenly”, quoting the refrain of a popular Turkish song upon press questions after his opening speech at the Grand Assembly. At the time of this writing, there was no official response from Pentagon or the White House,but I’m almost certain Turkey’s ambitious plan to carve out a colony hundreds of miles wide and 30 miles deep to resettle 1-2 million Syrian refugees at the expense of the Kurdish majority to be completely controlled by the Turkish military is not acceptable. I don’t anticipate an imminent full-scale campaign by the military. Rather, intensive shelling of YPG targets, hot pursuit of presumed PKK targets close to the border by Special Forces units or drone operations on point targets sha...