Reuters, Ankara :
Turkey said Tuesday it would “shortly” begin an offensive into northern Syria as President Donald Trump insisted the United States had not abandoned its Kurdish allies by pulling forces out of the area.
Istanbul sent more armoured vehicles to the border with Syria, an AFP correspondent said, with a large convoy of dozens of vehicles seen in the Turkish town of Akcakale in Sanliurfa province.
Meanwhile, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said Turkish forces were attacking near the border.
“The Turkish military is shelling one of our points on #SereKaniye Border with Turkey,” the SDF said in a tweet late Tuesday, referencing the key border town of Ras al-Ain.
It was one of the places from which US troops withdrew on Monday, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“There were no injuries to our forces. We didn’t respond to this unprovoked attack. We are prepared to defend the people and the people of NE #Syria,” the SDF said.
Border skirmishes between Turkish and Kurdish forces have taken place before, and there was no indication the latest reported shelling was part of a broader offensive.
But Fahrettin Altun, Turkey’s communications director wrote in the Washington Post that Turkish military units would “cross the Turkish-Syrian border shortly.”
Kurdish forces can either “defect” or Turkey will “have no choice but to stop them from disrupting our counter-Islamic State efforts,” he added.
Trump has blown hot and cold since a surprise announcement on Sunday that Washington was pulling back 50 to 100 “special operators” from Syria’s northern frontier.
The troops had served as a buffer preventing a long-planned attack by Turkey against Kurdish forces, who were crucial in the campaign to defeat the Islamic State group but are viewed as “terrorists” by Ankara.
After appearing to give a green light to the Turkish invasion on Sunday, he later threatened to “obliterate” Turkey’s economy if it went too far.
But he also gave a warm account of Turkey in other tweets and announced that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would visit Washington on November 13.
“So many people conveniently forget that Turkey is a big trading partner of the United States,” he said. Ankara had already brushed aside Trump’s warnings, with Vice-President Fuat Oktay saying: “Turkey is not a country that will act according to threats.”
