Damascus slams Turkey’s military 'aggression' into Syrian territory

Syria has denounced Turkey’s recent military incursion into the Syrian territory, backed by the US-led coalition, saying the offensive violates the Arab country's sovereignty.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned Turkey’s military operation in a statement released on Wednesday, Syrian media reported.

The ministry called for an immediate end to the Turkish "aggression," adding that the operation is being carried out under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

"Any party conducting a battle against terrorism on Syrian soil must do so in coordination with the Syrian government and the Syrian army,” the statement read, adding, "Chasing out Daesh and replacing them with terrorist groups backed by Turkey is not fighting terrorism."

The reaction came hours after Turkish special forces, tanks and jets backed by planes from the US-led coalition launched their first coordinated offensive in Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the operation in northern Syria was launched in the early hours of Wednesday morning "against terror groups" such as Daesh and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) - a US-backed Kurdish group based in Syria - that "constantly threaten" Turkey.

The epicenter of the military action, dubbed "Euphrates Shield," is the Syrian border city of Jarablus, from where Ankara says militants have fired rockets into Turkey.

In a speech in Ankara on Wednesday, Erdogan said, "The road to solving the terror problem passes through a solution to problems in Syria and in Iraq.... Turkey will overcome threats originating from Syria."

Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusgolu also defended the operation, claiming that it would be a turning point in the fight against Daesh and would accelerate the removal of the terrorists from Syria's northern Aleppo region.

"We don't need to fight against mosquitoes, our aim is to eradicate the swamp and remove threats against Turkey," he said on his Twitter account.

Meanwhile, PYD head, Saleh Muslim, wrote in a tweet on Wednesday that Turkey was entering a "quagmire" in Syria and faced defeat there like Daesh.

Redur Xelil, a spokesman for the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), a militia affiliated to the PYD, also said that the intervention was a "blatant aggression in Syrian internal affairs.”

A senior US official said on Wednesday that the US is providing Turkey's military with air support, intelligence and advisers in its offensive inside Syria.

"We want to help the Turks get ISIL (Daesh) off the [Syrian-Turkish] border,” the official claimed.

SS