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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hopes Turkish forces will have completely encircled Afrin by Wednesday evening, a presidential source said, clarifying his earlier comments in a speech indicating the Kurdish-held Syrian city would fall by then.

"In the president's speech the sentence 'I hope that Afrin will have completely fallen by the evening' should be understood as 'the encirclement will have been completed by the evening'," said a presidential source in a message to media, asking not to be named.

Erdogan had earlier stated in a speech at the presidential palace in Ankara that Afrin would fall by the evening to the Turkish army and Syrian allies, a claim rejected by the Syrian Kurds.

"We have got a little bit closer to Afrin. I hope that Afrin will, God willing, have completely fallen by the evening," Erdogan said in the speech.

Afrin city is the key target in Turkey's seven-week operation Olive Branch launched on January 20 and aimed at ousting the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) from the Afrin region of northern Syria.

A YPG spokesman accused Erdogan of "daydreaming" in the speech.

The Turkish army and its Syrian allies, who had been looking to complete the encirclement in a two-pronged movement from the east and the west, had Afrin city surrounded on Monday, the army said on Tuesday.

"The routes used to the east by the terrorists to enter and go out of the region will be closed today or tomorrow, God willing," Erdogan added in the speech.

Turkey regards the YPG as a terror group and a branch of a Kurdish militant movement in Turkey that has waged an insurgency for decades.

But the YPG has been a key ally of the United States in the fight against jihadists in Syria and Turkey's operation against it has raised tensions with Ankara's NATO allies in Washington and Europe.

Erdogan has repeatedly said that after taking Afrin, Turkey's offensive would expand to key border towns controlled by the YPG right up to the Iraqi frontier.

These would include Kurdish-held towns such as Manbij where US forces have a presence, raising the risk of a confrontation with Turkey's NATO ally.

"We will cleanse Manbij and then in the same way will cleanse east of the Euphrates right up to the Iraqi border," he said.

Erdogan also raised the prospect of a cross-border operation in northern Iraq where the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a decades long struggle against the Turkish army, has its rear bases.

"We are surveying the terror nests in northern Iraq at every opportunity," said Erdogan. "Soon we will bring these down on the heads of the terrorists in the strongest way."

Last Update: Wednesday, 14 March 2018 KSA 14:51 - GMT 11:51

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Erdogan hopes Afrin will be totally encircled by evening ...

IN TURKEY under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the tweet has been turned into a crime, and a troubled democracy is being turned into a dictatorship. Gradually but inexorably, a nation that once aspired to be an exemplar of enlightened moderation is being transformed by Mr. Erdogan into a dreary totalitarian prison. In the latest setback, last week, 23 journalists were sentenced to prison for between two and seven years on patently ridiculous charges that they were members of a terrorist organization and had tweeted about it. Two others were convicted on lesser charges of supporting a terrorist organization.

Mr. Erdogan, the target of a failed coup attempt in July 2016, has embarked on a campaign of repression against perceived enemies in the press, government, academia and law enforcement, among other pillars of Turkish society. More than 60,000 people have been arrested and 150,000 forced from their jobs. Mr.Erdogans prime targets are the perceived followers of the opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen, who now lives in Pennsylvania. Mr. Erdogan claims Mr. Gulen once his ally in Turkish politics had incited the coup attempt, hence the charge of a terrorist organization. Mr. Gulen denies it.

Turkey once had a robust, independent press, but Mr. Erdogan has waged a multifront campaign: closing media outlets, forcing others into new ownership, and using friendly judges and prosecutors. In the latest cases, some reporters and editors were convicted for what they said on Twitter. A lawyer representing two journalists, Baris Topuk, said at an earlier hearing: In our opinion, the name of the organization in which the defendants are accused of being members should be TTO: Tweetist Terrorist Organization. There are no weapons or bombs in the case, only news articles and tweets. Ali Akkus, who was news editor of the now-defunct Zaman daily, had said on Twitter, No dictator can silence the press. The use of the word dictator was singled out by a prosecutor in the charges against him. Mr. Akkus received a sentence of seven years and six months in prison.

Cuma Ulus, the editor of the daily Millet, got the same sentence and declared earlier during the proceedings: I have been a journalist for 21 years. I stood against terrorism and violence, [and] defended expression of freedom during all my life. In the indictment, prosecutors cited three tweets and 22 retweets, accusing him of stirring up frenzy against the government.

Separately, 17 current and former writers, cartoonists and executives from the Cumhuriyet newspaper are also on trial. Mr. Erdogan is reportedly planning an assault on Internet broadcasting and free expression online, as well.

The show trials underscore how far Turkey has fallen from Western norms of democracy, human rights and rule of law. Mr. Erdogan is happily marching alongside Russia, China, Egypt, Cuba and others where legitimacy to rule rests on coercion and thought control. Mr. Erdogans dictatorship must be called out for what it is. Even if he covers his ears, the United States and other nations must protest, and loudly.

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Erdogan is transforming Turkey into a totalitarian prison ...

The 6-year-old child who cried in front of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become a global sensation. Erdogan spotted the weeping girl wearing a military uniform during an address at his partys congress last week, brought her onto the stage, and told her that if she died as a martyr, her coffin would be covered with the Turkish flag she held in her pocket. You are ready for anything, arent you? the Islamist strongman asked. The terrified child managed to utter yes, though it was hard to hear it through her sobs.

Nationalism is running high in Turkey. Ankara is at war with Kurdish insurgents in the countrys southeast, and across the border in Syria since January. Moreover, Turkey has been under a state of emergency since mid-2016, when a rogue group within the military attempted a coup against Erdogans government, killing some 200 civilians. Amid the growing number of enemies at home and abroad, Erdogan has done his best to promote militarism among the populace, including by openly encouraging the formation of civilian militias claiming to defend his governmentand the Turkish nation.

Children have not been immune to these efforts. Over the last year, the Turkish government sent ministers to facilitate militaristic student parades, while Turkeys state-run religious affairs directorate has been publishing its own propaganda materials, to teach Turkish children about the grandeurs of martyrdom. Turkish students, including kindergarteners, around the country have been made to conduct military marches and recite ultranationalist poems at schools. Some state-run schools even replaced their recess bells with Ottoman military marches to raise students national consciousness. One 17-year-old commented, sometimes we get so excited that we march like the military during recess.

These are all extensions of Erdogans decade-old efforts to raise a pious and zealous generation of Turks that exalts martyrdom to defend the new Turkey that the president has worked tirelessly to construct. Erdogans shocking 2008 request from Turkish women to produce three to five children eacha request he backed up with financial incentives in 2015is part and parcel of this strategy. With Turkeys state-backed Islamic vocational schools proliferating throughout the country, Ankara also amended student-placement procedures to automatically enroll studentsincluding non-Sunni and non-Muslim onesinto these institutions. Tellingly, the presidents son Bilal, in his address to students at one such vocational school in January, told the teenagers, You are Erdogans generation.

These efforts, along with the relentless propaganda of pro-government Turkish media, paid off in July 2016, when groups of vigilantes heeded Erdogans televised callechoed by the mosquesto take to Istanbuls streets and resist the coup. While the massive public demonstrations promoting democracy and denouncing a military junta may have been a sign of a maturing civil society, images of vigilante groups physically abusing captured soldiers on Istanbul streets appalled manyand terrified roughly half the electorate that does not support Erdogan. Since then, the rise of civilian pro-Erdogan militias has made headlines in opposition media and stirred heated debates in parliament. Erdogan, meanwhile, decreed impunity for all the groups who partook in the resistance to the coup.

U.S. officials are watching with growing concerns. The Turkish government has stirred and sponsored anti-Americanism, and this is a major motivating force for these vigilantes. Ankara blames Washington for both the failed putschwhich has all but become the founding myth of Erdogans new Turkish republicand the rise of Kurdish self-rule in northern Syria. Erdogans ministers and media continuously slander American citizens as coup-plotters and depict the Turkish war against Kurdish militants in Syria as a fight against pro-Kurdish Americans. Most Turkish people, opinion polls show, now consider the United States the top threat to their national security. And the so-called peoples militias appear ready, Erdogan-willing, to face any enemy of the nation as proclaimed by the all-powerful president. Erdogan has also promised to deliver an Ottoman slap to the U.S. and bury U.S. special forces soldiers operating in northeast Syria.

The challenge for the U.S.-Turkish relationship is that it cannot survive in the long run if the bulk of the Turkish population sees the United States in such adversarial terms. Moreover, the importance of Turkey to the United States has long been as an exemplar of majority Muslim society that was making its way along a long road of democratization and meeting the standards of rule of law and human rights that are associated with the European Union and NATO. Erdogans rhetoric sounds more like one might expect from a state sponsor of terrorism than a sound democratic ally. Indeed, Turkey is moving in the direction of an autocratic, militarized, semi-Islamist dictatorship rather than a liberal democracy.

American officials who write off the presidents anti-American rhetoric as Erdogan pandering to his base fail to understand that demonizing the United States is an integral part of Erdogans agenda. Only tough love will put the U.S.-Turkish relationship on a steadier long-term course. The state of Turkeys democracy and the governments shameless promotion of anti-Americanism must be addressed if we are to salvage this relationship. We can no longer postpone the day of reckoning. If we dont address these problems now, we will share in the blame for what went wrong.

Eric S. Edelman is a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Merve Tahiroglu is a research analyst.

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Erdogan's Rising Islamist Militarism | The Weekly Standard

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkeys military and its rebel allies have besieged the northern Syrian town of Afrin and were nearing its town center, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday, in what would mark a major advance in Turkeys military operation.

Turkey launched its operation, dubbed Olive Branch, in northern Syria nearly seven weeks ago to sweep the Syrian Kurdish YPG from the Turkish border. Turkey sees the YPG as a terrorist group and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

On Thursday, Turkish forces and their Free Syrian Army (FSA) allies seized control of the nearby town of Jinderes, state media reported. Turkey now controls five out of seven of the settlements in the northwest Afrin region, state media said.

Now the center of Afrin is surrounded and our entry is imminent, Erdogan said in televised speech in Ankara.

We are removing the last remaining obstacles standing before our besieging of Afrin city center, he said, adding there was still about six kilometers (3.7 miles) to go to reach Afrin from the outskirts of Jinderes.

Later on Friday, a spokesman for the YPG denied that the Afrin town had been besieged, and said several of the regions Turkey has claimed to have taken control of were still battlegrounds.

The forces of Erdogans Turkish army ... are 10 to 15 km away from it (Afrin), YPG spokesman Nouri Mahmoud said. Today, there were also clashes around Bulbul, where they announced around 30 days ago that they captured, occupied it.

Erdogan said Turkeys armed forces will push on after operations in Afrin and Manbij, further east, to sweep Syrian Kurdish fighters from the length of Turkey border with Syria.

We are in Afrin today, we will be in Manbij tomorrow. The next day we will ensure that the east of Euphrates will be cleared of terrorist up to the Iraqi border.

Erdogans repeated threats to push on to Manbij have caused complications with NATO ally the United States, which has its troops deployed in the area.

Turkey has been infuriated by U.S. support for the YPG. Washington has backed the group in the fight against Islamic State.

The PKK, which has carried out a three-decade insurgency in Turkeys mainly Kurdish southeast, is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, Turkey and the European Union.

On Thursday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey would complete the Afrin offensive by May and carry out a joint operation with Iraqs central government against Kurdish militants in Iraq.

Cavusoglu said the operation could begin after Iraqs parliamentary elections scheduled for May 2018, signaling that Turkish forces may move to northern Iraq following the ongoing operations in northern Syria.

Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu, Ece Toksabay and Ali Kucukgocmen; Additional reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut; Editing by David Dolan and Matthew Mpoke Bigg

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Operation Olive Branch will continue until it reaches its goals. We will rid Manbij of terrorists, as it was promised to us, and our battles will continue until no terrorist is left until our border with Iraq, Erdogan said during a speech in Ankara on Friday.

Before the Turkish president made these remarks, there was apprehension about Turkish forces pushing beyond their initial objective of Afrin to Manbij, where U.S. troops are deployed. Erdogan seemed to be not only confirming that Manbij would be attacked, but that he will push even further east.

American troops were deployed to Manbij in part to keep hostile Syrian rebel factions from attacking each other, and to keep the Turks from moving into the area. Also, the U.S. response to Turkeys incursion has been somewhat muted so far because American officials say the Kurdish forces occupying Afrin are not directly linked to the anti-Islamic State operation or the Kurdish militia commands supported by the United States. That delicate diplomatic position will become untenable if Erdogan strikes eastward and begins hitting Kurdish units that unquestionably are part of the battle against ISIS.

In an interview with Reuters, Erdogan adviser Gulnur Aybet implied one goal of Turkeys drive into Syria is to force the United States to reassess its policies and show more respect for Turkeys positions.

The moment Turkey starts using its military power instead of soft power in the region, however sour ties are at that moment, it encourages Washington to stop and think, said Aybet. I believe the U.S. will put forward some truly satisfying alternative solutions to ease Turkeys security concerns.

She said that everyone is aware of the risk that Turkey could provoke a crisis by pushing into Manbij, and added darkly, We hope that the Americans are aware, too.

Reuters notes that Aybet implied the alternative solutions Turkeydesires pertain to restoring restoring trust between NATO allies so that American proposals for a safe zone on the Turkey-Syria border could be taken seriously.

One of Turkeys biggest complaints along those lines has been U.S. support for Syrian Kurdish militia forces, which the Erdogan government sees as allies of Kurdish separatists in Turkey. Among Turkeys greatest fears throughout the Syrian civil war and battle against ISIS has been the possible formation of a new Kurdish state that would consume portions of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq.

Erdogans address on Friday included the latest iteration of his slam at the United States for arming Syrian Kurdish forces he considers to be terrorists.

How can a strategic partner do this to its partner? he asked. If we will wage a battle against terror together, we will either do this together or we will take care of ourselves.

Erdogan insisted that Turkeys invasion of Syria was entirely about targeting terrorists.

Turkeys Afrin operation is clear warning to those who dont want to understand Turkeys determination in the fight against terrorism, he said. Turkey will rid Syrias Manbij of terrorists following Afrin. Nobody should be bothered by this. Turkey is not occupying Afrin, only fighting against terrorists there.

We will continue to fight until no terrorist is left on our borders. Our only concern is to ensure our national security and the safety of our citizens and our Syrian brothers and sisters, Erdogan insisted.

Erdogan compared his Afrin-and-beyond operation to Turkish military interventions in the fall of 2016 against al-Rai and Jarabulus, which were towns held by the Islamic State. The Turks said Kurdish YPG forces would also be targeted during those operations.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag openly threatened American forces with attack if they attempt to shield the Kurds from Turkeys Operation Olive Branch.

Those who support the terrorist organization will become a target in this battle. The United States needs to review its soldiers and elements giving support to terrorists on the ground in such a way as to avoid a confrontation with Turkey, Bozdag warned after Erdogan spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump by telephone.

Turkey has disputed the White House account of that phone call, which holds that Trump pressured Erdogan to scale back his operation in Syria. Instead, Turkish officials claim Trump promised to stop supporting Kurdish forces.

Yeni Safak columnist Ibrahim Karagul, a reliable barometer for the more hot-blooded pro-Erdogan wing of Turkish politics, was positively spoiling for a fight with the United States in his Friday editorial.

Karagul declared the U.S. is no longer a trustworthy country for Turkey and none of its guarantees can ever be trusted againbecause the U.S. has been using ISIS, the Kurdish PKK separatist group in Turkey, and of course the treasonous followers of Fethullah Gulen as proxy forces to wage acovert war against Ankara. He said the American goal is to destroy Turkey by provoking a civil war similar to the one in Syria, which he claimed the United States also orchestrated.

Karagul freely indulged in the nasty Crusader rhetoric Erdogan himself has been toying with latelythe very same rhetoric used by Islamist jihadis like ISIS to justify terrorist warfare against the West as a defensive operation:

This plan is identical to the map operations the Crusaders applied in our region. The entire region spanning the Mediterranean and the Iranian border are being dehumanized, and cleared of Arabs and Turkmens; demographic deportation is being applied. This zone that is being vacated is going to be turned into a foreign garrison and filled with U.S.-Israeli military bases. All attacks on Turkey and the region will be made from this zone.

Turkey is showing and is required to show the same resistance that was shown toward the invasion of Anatolia after World War I. Now, the national struggle, a new war of independence, and homeland defense are all being carried out against the U.S. and its close allies.

Most disturbingly, Karagul called for Turkey to immediately shut down Incirlik Air Base, a vital base for American air operations in the region, because in his fevered imagination the United States is coordinating ISIS and PKK forces from there. He predicted a coming moment when thousands of people surround and siege the Incirlik base, an event that would threaten the safety of thousands of American personnel and their dependents.

Threats against the air base are a common expression of anti-American sentiment in Turkey, even from sources otherwise critical of Erdogan. American officials have good reasons to worry that Erdogan could arrange a mob action against Incirlik if he doesnt like the U.S. response to his actions in Syria.

Deutsche Welle reports that European leaders are growing uncomfortable with Erdogans action in Syria as well. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini warned this week that Turkeys invasion could undermine U.N.-backed Syria peace talks in Geneva.

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Erdogan: Turkish Forces Could Sweep Across Syria to the Iraqi ...