Erdogan: Turkiye to settle issue of terrorists at its southern borders in summer
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the country is making preparations to settle the issue of threats to its security on its southern borders: in Iraq and Syria, TASS reports
During a speech after the Presidential Cabinet meeting, Erdogan said, “We continue to resolutely fight terrorism, despite obstacles inside and outside our borders. We’ll permanently resolve the matter concerning our Iraqi border this summer. We maintain our will to create a 30-40km deep security corridor along our Syrian border. We urge everyone in the region to respect our security strategy. Otherwise, they will be the cause of the tension that will arise. We have preparations that will cause new nightmares to those who assume they can bring Turkiye to its knees by establishing a terrorist state along our southern borders.”
The Turkish leader also said that the country’s interests ‘are not limited only to its own territory, but extend far beyond its borders’. Erdogan called on other countries to take this into account and said that Turkiye ‘will not hesitate to push the limits until it will make those, who have yet to understand the country’s and nation’s determination in combatting terrorism, accept this fact’.
Media in Turkiye took the President’s words as a signal that the republic could launch a new major cross-border operation in Iraq and Syria by summer. Over the past years, Turkiye has already carried out several similar operations aimed at combating militants of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Iraq and its Syrian branches.
