SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Any military attack on northern Syria will definitely harm Turkey and the region but favor terrorists, Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei told Turkey’s President amid a high-level meeting in Tehran on Tuesday.
Iranian state news agency IRNA reported, that Khamenei discussed a range of topics related to the region with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and both sides stressed cooperation between the two countries.
Erdogan spoke his concerns about Turkey’s border security on the southern border with Syria, in response, Khamenei said, “any military attack in Syria will benefit the terrorists” according to IRNA.
He also addressed Erdogan by saying, “We regard the security of Turkey and its borders as our own security; you regard the security of Syria as yours.”, but “The Syrian issue has to be settled through negotiations” Khamenei stressed as stated by IRNA.
“Maintaining the territorial integrity of Syria is very important, and any military attack in northern Syria will definitely harm Turkey, Syria, and the entire region, and benefit terrorists,” Khamenei told Erdogan.
Turkish president Erdogan has renewed Turkey’s call several times recently to launch a new military incursion in northern Syria saying, “the operation is to maintain Turkey’s border security and establish a new safe zone”.
Ankara wants to extend 30-km (20-mile) deep “safe zones” along the border. Moscow and Tehran both oppose any such action by Turkey.
Any Turkish operation in Syria would attack the Kurdish YPG militia, a key part of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that controls large parts of northern Syria and is regarded by Washington as an important ally against the Islamic State.
Turkey claims that the People Protection Units (YPG) which holds a large scale of land in northern Syria is linked to the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK).
The (PKK) is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey and the United States of America as well.
Meanwhile, the United States has partnered with Syrian Kurdish fighters to fight Islamic State (ISIS) in war-battered Syria However, Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish fighters as a part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) considered “terrorists” by Ankara.
Ankara has conducted three incursions into northern Syria since 2016, seizing hundreds of kilometers of land and pushing some 30 km deep into the country, in operations targeting mainly the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish YPG forces.
