MOSCOW: The United States opposes any military action that destabilizes the situation in Syria, a State Department spokesperson said, amid an escalation in retaliatory strikes by Turkiye and a Kurdish militia along the Syrian border.
Separately, Russia called on Turkiye to show restraint in its use of “excessive” military force in Syria and to keep tensions from escalating, Russian news agencies cited a Russian envoy to Syria as saying on Tuesday.
The comments came after Turkiye said the Syrian Kurdish YPG killed two people in mortar attacks from northern Syria on Monday, following Turkish air operations at the weekend and a deadly bomb attack in Istanbul a week earlier.
A child and a teacher were killed and six people were wounded when mortar bombs hit a border area in Turkiye’s Gaziantep province. Turkiye’s armed forces responded with jets again hitting targets in Syria, a senior security official said.
President Tayyip Erdogan has said operations would not be limited to an air campaign and may involve ground forces. Turkiye has conducted several major military operations against the YPG and Daesh militants in northern Syria in recent years.
The US State Department spokesperson said Washington had communicated its serious concerns to Ankara about the impact of escalation on the goal of fighting Islamic State.
“We have urged Turkiye against such operations, just as we have urged our Syrian partners against attacks or escalation,” the spokesperson said in emailed responses to questions.
The United States has allied with the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against Islamic State in Syria, causing a deep rift with NATO ally Turkiye.
RETALIATION
Turkish warplanes destroyed 89 targets in Syria and Iraq on Sunday in operations targeting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the YPG, which Ankara says is a wing of the PKK. The defense ministry said 184 militants were killed in operations on Sunday and Monday.
Turkiye said its weekend operation was in retaliation for a bomb attack in a busy Istanbul pedestrian street last week that killed six people, and which authorities blamed on Kurdish militants. The PKK and SDF denied involvement in the bombing.
An SDF spokesman said the weekend Turkish strikes destroyed grain silos, a power station and a hospital, killing 11 civilians, an SDF fighter and two guards. It also said it would retaliate.
The PKK launched an insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict. It is designated a terrorist organization by Turkiye, the United States and the European Union.
US, Russia urge Turkiye to show ‘restraint’ in Syria
https://arab.news/9gbq7
US, Russia urge Turkiye to show ‘restraint’ in Syria
- Russian envoy cited as calling on Turkiye to show restraint
- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said operations may involve ground forces
Military intervention in Iran ‘not the preferred option’: French minister
- The president’s son blamed foreign interference for the protests’ violent turn, but said “the security and law enforcement forces may have made mistakes that no one intends to defend and that must be addressed”
PARIS: Military intervention in Iran, where authorities launched a deadly crackdown on protesters that killed thousands, is not France’s preferred option, its armed forces minister said on Sunday.
“I think we must support the Iranian people in any way we can,” Alice Rufo said on the political broadcast “Le Grand Jury.”
But “a military intervention is not the preferred option” for France, she said, adding it was “up to the Iranian people to rid themselves of this regime.”
Rufo lamented how hard it was to “document the crimes the Iranian regime has carried out against its population” due to an internet shutdown.
“The fate of the Iranian people belongs to Iranians, and it is not for us to choose their leaders,” said Rufo.
The son of Iran’s president, who is also a government adviser, has called for internet connectivity to be restored, warning that the more than two-week blackout there would exacerbate anti-government sentiment.
Yousef Pezeshkian, whose father, Masoud, was elected president in 2024, said, “Keeping the internet shut will create dissatisfaction and widen the gap between the people and the government.”
“This means those who were not and are not dissatisfied will be added to the list of the dissatisfied,” he wrote in a Telegram post that was later picked up by the IRNA news agency.
Such a risk, he said, was greater than that of a return to protests if connectivity were restored.
The younger Pezeshkian, a media adviser to the presidency, said he did not know when internet access would be restored.
He pointed to concerns about the “release of videos and images related to last week’s ‘protests that turned violent’” as a reason the internet remained cut off, but criticized the logic.
Quoting a Persian proverb, he posted “‘He whose account is clean has nothing to fear from scrutiny.’”
The president’s son blamed foreign interference for the protests’ violent turn, but said “the security and law enforcement forces may have made mistakes that no one intends to defend and that must
be addressed.”
He went on to say that “the release of films is something we will have to face sooner or later. Shutting down the internet won’t solve anything; it will just postpone the issue.”
