Turkey says its forces won't stay in Syria's Afrin region

T TV Tuesday 20/March/2018 14:08 PM
By: Times News Service

Turkey: Once Syria's Afrin region has been cleared of what it calls terrorists, Turkey says it will not stay there.
Turkish and Syrian rebel allies raised their flags and declared full control of the area on Sunday, 18 March.
That after an eight-week campaign against the Kurdish YPG militia which had controlled the town.
Ankara regards the group as an extension of a militant group waging an insurgency inside Turkey. More than 150,000 people have fled the region in recent days, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
But Turkey hails "Operation Olive Branch" as a success, saying it stopped Afrin from becoming a terrorist state.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister, Bekir Bozdag said, "We are not permanent there and we are certainly not invaders. The goal of our operation is to clear the region from terrorists and to reinstate a stronger environment of peace, trust and stability and to hand the region back to its real owners after clearing it of terrorists."
Afrin was once known as a stable pocket of northwest Syria. But, recent fighting highlights the growing significance of foreign powers such as Turkey in the Syrian civil war, and also the complexity of the conflict. While Turkey calls the YPG terrorists, Washington calls them a close ally in its battle against IS.