Erdoğan: Operation Would Already Be Over if We Hadn’t Minded Civilians

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President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has spoken at AKP Extended Provincial Chairs Meeting.

Some highlights from Erdoğan’s speech is as follows:

“We are doing a lot of calculations”

“We’ve done everything we can for the 3.5 million guests in our country to return to their homes. However, we’ve seen that the terrorism in Syria has reached our lands.

“As of this morning, we’ve neutralized 1,873 terrorists and take control of 415-kilometer square area.

“We are trying to figure out how we can have the people of the region go back to their own lands. We’re doing a lot of calculations beside that”.

“New strategy after besieging Afrin”

“After besieging Afrin and cutting contact of the terrorists with the outside, we will carry on with the operation with a new strategy.

“Hopefully we will clear Afrin and ensure that hundreds of thousands of residents return to their country”.

“You immoral, unscrupulous person…”

“What saddens us most is the hypocrisy, or even frivolity of some countries which we see as ally.

“A spokesperson for the minister of defense [Pentagon Spokesperson Adrian Galloway] of one of these countries says without any shame that civilians have been killed in Afrin and people cannot return to their homes due to violence.

“You immoral, unscrupulous person. You don’t feel any discomfort with hundreds of children, women, elder people, civilians being murdered every day in East-Ghouta, but you feel discomfort with this fight against terrorists.

“If we hadn’t minded civilians in Afrin, this operation was already over”.

“This summer will be warm”

“We will first clear Manbij from terrorists, and then we will continue our operation in order to secure the eastern Euphrates.

“It appears that this summer will be warm for both terrorists and their supporters”. (EKN/TK)