Damascus Warns It Will Down Turkish Warplanes if They Attack Syria

Damascus on Thursday vowed to shoot down Turkish fighter jets that carry out attacks inside Syrian territory, while Ankara sought the approval of Russia and Iran to conduct an aerial campaign on a Kurdish enclave in the country’s north.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week announced plans for an air campaign against the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria. On Thursday, Turkey dispatched its military chiefs for talks in Moscow, Reuters reported.

“We are meeting the Russians and Iran on the use of air space,” foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was quoted as saying. However, the Syrian government warned against any aerial assault on its territory, Agence France-Presse reported.

“We warn that the Syrian air force is ready to destroy Turkish air targets in the skies of Syria,” deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad was quoted as saying by the state-run SANA news agency, according to AFP.

“We warn the Turkish leaders that if they start fighting in the region of Afrin, it will be seen as an aggression by the Turkish army against the sovereignty of Syria,” he added.

Turkey Says U.S. Plans for Border Security Force Still a Cause for Concern

The United States has not sufficiently addressed Turkish concerns over a Washington-led plan to establish a Kurdish-led border security force in Syria, Ankara said on Thursday, according to Agence France-Presse.

The U.S.-led coalition said on Sunday said that it has started training and recruiting personnel for a 30,000-strong security force that would be deployed along the borders of a region controlled by the Washington-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria.

The plan angered Turkey, Russia, Iran and the Syrian government. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the U.S. on Monday of creating an “army of terror” along Turkey’s southern border.

Washington on Wednesday played down plans to create the force as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that the proposal had been “misportrayed, misdescribed.”

The Pentagon said in an earlier statement that the new force in Syria is neither an army nor a conventional border force, but was “internally focused” to prevent the resurgence of the so-called Islamic State.

But Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told CNN-Turk television on Thursday that U.S. assurances were not enough, according to AFP.

“Did this satisfy us in full? No, it did not,” he said. “The establishment of a so-called terror army would cause irreversible damage in our relations … it is a very serious situation.”

Damascus Says Continued U.S. Military Presence is Act of Aggression

Syria’s foreign ministry on Thursday described U.S. military presence in Syria as “illegitimate,” Reuters reported. Its statement, which added that the U.S. presence represented an “aggression” against the country’s sovereignty, was released in response to a speech made by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson a day earlier, in which he signaled that U.S. forces would maintain an open-ended deployment in the war-torn country.

“The American military presence on Syrian land is illegitimate and represents a blatant breach of international law and an aggression against national sovereignty,” the foreign ministry statement said, according to Reuters.

Syria would continue its “relentless war against terrorist movements with their different names until every inch of Syrian soil is cleansed” and would work with “the same determination” to free the country of any “illegitimate foreign presence,” it added.

The statement also responded to a comment by Tillerson that the U.S. would not foot Syria’s reconstruction bill. Syria “does not need a single dollar from the U.S. for reconstruction because this dollar is stained with the blood of the Syrians,” the foreign ministry said, according to the Associated Press.

Recommended Reads

• The Atlantic: America Quietly Starts Nation-Building in Parts of Syria
• CNN: Tillerson’s Syria Wish List Means U.S. Is in It for the Longer Haul
• Al Jazeera: Why Russia Refuses to Give Refugee Status to Syrians
• Voice of America: Why Is Turkey Threatening Incursion Into Kurdish Enclave in Northern Syria?
• The Independent: The Next Kurdish War Is on the Horizon – Turkey and Syria Will Never Allow It to Create a Mini-State