Afrin

Ankara expects NATO to take an official stance on the creation of a 'terrorist army' along the Turkish border in Syria, President Erdogan said. He was referring to the planned 30,000-strong US-backed mostly Kurdish force.

The U.S.’ “unilateral” army plan may harm Turkey’s ties with Kurds and hinder normalization in Afrin, Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Jan. 15.

The National Security Council (MGK) on Nov. 28 discussed expanding the Turkish military’s operation in Syria to Afrin and Aleppo, according to a statement issued after the meeting.

Syria's on site situation and Turkish army's plans for an offensive against the city of Afrin in the north will be on the agenda for Turkey's and Russia's presidents, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin at their Sochi meeting today, Russian and Turkish media reports.

Five Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants have been neutralized while attempting to cross Turkey's border illegally, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said Aug. 20. 

Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım chaired a security meeting on Aug. 9 with Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Customs and Trade Minister Bülent Tüfenkci, Presidential Spokesperson İbrahim Kalın, Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar and intelligence chief Hakan Fidan.  

The Atlantic Council released a very interesting analysis on the Russian-Turkish relation regarding Syria.

Astute daily Hürriyet columnist Deniz Zeyrek wondered in a recent column whether Russia is inviolable for Turkey. He listed the things that Ankara should be blasting Moscow for but is not. 

When Turkey intervened in northern Syria five months ago, it claimed it had no designs on its former Ottoman dominion and that its only goals were to cleanse its borders of the Islamic State and to eliminate what it called the terrorist threat posed by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the US-allied Kurdish militia that is paradoxically the most effective force against the jihadis.

Turkey's development minister has paid a visit to the southeastern town of Silopi, which has seen severe damage during recent clashes between security forces and outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants.