ANKARA (Sputnik) – Turkish military operation Peace Spring in northern Syria will continue until all its goals are achieved, a statement adopted following a meeting of the Turkish National Security Council chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held on Tuesday.
“The operation Peace Spring will continue until it reaches all its objectives”, the statement pointed out.
According to the statement, Ankara expects that the countries, which signed an agreement on creation of the 30-kilometer safe zone in Syria, would complete work on clearing this area of terrorists as soon as possible.
President Erdogan has repeatedly said that Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring in northeastern Syria to ensure safety of its border and accommodate Syrian refugees in the area. As of today, Ankara is the largest host country of registered refugees, with over 3.6 million displaced Syrians living in Turkey.
On 17 October, Turkey agreed with the United States on a 120-hour ceasefire to allow the withdrawal of the Kurdish fighters from the Syrian-Turkish border.
As the ceasefire came to an end, Turkey and Russia signed on 22 October their memorandum, setting conditions for the peaceful withdrawal and envisioning joint patrols to ensure the implementation of the agreement. Since then, joint patrols are conducted regularly by the Russian military police and the Turkish troops.
