In an article titled “Erdogan tells US: Stop backing the Kurds” and carried by DEBKAfile, the outlet reports that:
“An all-out Turkish-Kurdish war has boiled over in northern Syria since the Turkish army crossed the border last Wednesday, Aug. 24 for the avowed aim of fighting the Islamic State and pushing the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia back. Instead of falling back, the Kurds went on the offensive and are taking a hammering. This raging confrontation has stalled the US-led coalition offensive against ISIS and put on indefinite hold any US plans for campaigns to drive the jihadists out of their Syrian and Iraqi capitals of Raqqa and Mosul.”
The piece then goes on to describe how:
“Since cleansing Jarablus of ISIS, Turkey has thrown large, additional armored and air force into the battle against the 35.000-strong YPG Kurdish fighters. This is no longer just a sizeable military raid, as Ankara has claimed, but a full-fledged war operation.”
Alexei Voskresensky, Dean of School of Political Affairs at MGIMO University and editor-in-chief of "Comparative Politics" magazine (studio guest); and Alaa Ebharim, a Syrian journalist from Damascus, joined us to discuss the issue in further depth.
