Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Kurdish fighters in Syria would either lay down their arms or “be buried”, amid fighting between Turkish-backed Syrian fighters and soldiers since the fall of Bashar al-Assad this month, Reuters reported.
“The separatist killers will either say goodbye to their weapons or be buried in Syrian soil with their weapons,” Erdogan told lawmakers from his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Since Assad's fall, Ankara has repeatedly insisted that the Kurdish militia “People's Protection Forces” (SZN) should be disbanded and stressed that the group has no place in Syria's future, Reuters recalls. The change in Syria's leadership has left the country's main Kurdish factions in a difficult position.
“We will eradicate the terrorist organization that is trying to weave a wall of blood between us and our Kurdish brothers and sisters“, Erdogan said.
Turkey views the SZN, the main component of the US-aligned Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been fighting Turkey since 1984, the agency noted.
The PKK is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. Ankara has repeatedly called on its NATO ally Washington and other countries to end their support for the PKK.
Earlier today, the Turkish Defense Ministry said Turkish troops had killed 21 Kurdish fighters in northern Syria and Iraq.
The Turkish president also said Turkey would soon open a consulate in Aleppo, adding that Ankara expected an increase in border traffic next summer as some of the millions of Syrian migrants he said would start returning.