President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has announced Turkey’s military operation into northern Syria can start any moment in a bid to halt the United States’ plans to let the People’s Protection Units (YPG) form a new force of 30,000 troops in the region, calling the group an “army of terror.”
“We have finished our preparations. The operation can start any time,” Erdoğan said in Ankara on Jan. 15, in reference to the Afrin and Manbij regions of Syria currently controlled by the YPG.
Erdoğan strongly lashed out at the U.S.’s continued military partnership with the YPG, a group Ankara considers terrorist, and vowed Turkish troops will hit the group hard.
