Turkish Preparing to Launch Offensive as Deploying Troops on Syrian Border - Tasnim News Agency

(Tasnim) - Turkey has dispatched hundreds of soldiers to northern Syria to launch an operation against US-backed Kurdish forces.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity some Turkish officials told Bloomberg on Wednesday that the main goal of the planned offensive is to ensure that two-thirds of Turkey’s 560-mile border with Syria is free from the presence of Kurdish forces.

The move by Ankara could also help the country's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan build up domestic support and put pressure on the US and Russia to pacify Kurdish forces, officials added.

Officials also noted that Ankara intends to seize areas in the south of the city of Kobani in order to unite the territories under its control to the west and east of the Euphrates River, Sputnik reported.

Another potential target of the Turkish authorities could be the Menagh airfield, over which the Kurdistan Workers' Party and the Syrian Kurdish Self-Defense Forces, banned in Turkey, have established power.

On 13 October, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlud Cavusoglu claimed that Russia and the United States have failed to fulfill their obligations and did not clear Syria’s north from Kurdish militant units.

Later, on October 21, the Turkish President threatened that the country's armed forces will use heavy weapons to solve the problem and "not leave the situation as it is."

Damascus has repeatedly called the presence of Turkish forces on the border territory of Syria illegal calling on Ankara to withdraw troops.

Also in numerous occasions, the Syrian people have staged mass demonstrations in Syria’s northwestern province of Aleppo to denounce the presence of Turkish occupation forces in the conflict-plagued Arab country and demand their complete withdrawal from the Syrian soil.

Ankara-backed militants were deployed to northeastern Syria in October 2019 after Turkish military forces launched a long-threatened cross-border invasion in a declared attempt to push fighters of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) away from border areas.

Ankara views the US-backed YPG as a terrorist organization tied to the homegrown Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region in Turkey since 1984.

Turkey has played a major role in supporting terrorists in Syria ever since a major foreign-backed insurgency overtook the country more than ten years ago.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and other senior officials have said the Damascus government will respond through all legitimate means available to the ongoing ground offensive by Turkish forces and allied Takfiri militants in the northern part of the war-battered Arab country.