Turkish military. File photoANKARA, Jun 12The Turkish armed forces are preparing for a military operation in northern Syria, waiting for an order from Ankara, the Sabah newspaper writes on Sunday. On Thursday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said that the armed forces would launch anti-terrorist operations on the country's borders, and a decision would be made on this soon. According to media reports, the operations will take place in four regions of Syria. During his visit to Ankara on June 8, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed the situation in Syria with his Turkish counterpart. The day before, Defense Ministers of the two countries Sergei Shoigu and Hulusi Akar had a conversation.Assad did not rule out clashes between the Syrian army and the Turkish Armed Forces «The Turkish Armed Forces are preparing for the fifth operation in northern Syria, they are waiting for an order from Ankara,» the newspaper writes. to be carried out, pursues a number of goals. «Turkey's main goal in this operation is to fight the terrorist organization PKK (the Kurdistan Workers' Party banned in Turkey — ed.) at the border and threaten the country's security. The ultimate goal is to take a step that will facilitate the return of Syrian refugees «, he said. «As part of the fight against the PKK/YPG, Turkey seeks to control a wider territory and minimize the zone of influence of the separatist organization in Syria. By the point we have reached today, there is an opportunity to move forward in the fight against terrorism, due to both partial changes in internal balances in Syria, as well as changes in the international conjuncture. Turkey is currently taking advantage of this opportunity. This fight will stretch over a very long phase. The new operation to be performed is part of the process. We are waiting for an operation whose short-term effects can be found in the fight against terrorism, and the medium-term and long-term effects in the elimination of Turkey's strategic threats,» the expert said. » /> Turkish media reported that Russia did not approve the operation in northern Syria The presence of Turkish forces in the border area of Syria, which conduct operations against Kurdish formations there, Damascus has repeatedly called illegal and called on Ankara to withdraw troops. With the support of the American military, the Kurdish-Arab formations of the «Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is based on the YPG, controls most of the Syrian provinces of Al-Hasakah and Raqqa, as well as some settlements in the provinces of Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor. In particular, most of the quarters in the cities of El- Hasaka and Qamishli Official Damascus does not recognize an autonomous administration in the northeast of Syria.
The Russian Foreign Ministry hopes that Turkey will refrain from worsening the situation in Syria
