Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called on Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Cavusoglu not to take any measures towards further escalation after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threatened to launch a ground offensive in Northern Syria.
Baerbock said she had called on Turkey not to expand its attacks on Kurds in Northern Syria and Northern Iraq following a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Bucharest on Wednesday.
“Our key goal is the protection of civilians. And here, international law applies – including with regard to the protection against terrorism,” Baerbock said, adding she had “urgently” called to “abstain from any measures that would further propel a spiral of escalation.”
Meanwhile, Cavusoglu argued that Turkey expects support from its NATO partners in fighting terrorism. “You cannot portray terrorists as victims,” he said, referring to Kurdish associations such as the PKK, which Ankara classes as terrorists.
Erdoğan had recently threatened to launch a ground offensive in Syria after Ankara already started targeting Kurdish facilities in the North of Syria and Iraq through airstrikes on 20 November following an attack in Istanbul for which the government blamed the PKK.
Baerbock’s harsh criticism also comes in the face of Turkey’s continued refusal to ratify Sweden’s and Finland’s NATO membership applications. In exchange for its approval, Ankara demanded that the two countries step up actions against organisations seen as terrorists by Turkey.
However, the progress the two countries made in this regard so far is “not enough,” Cavusoglu said at the meeting.
(Julia Dahm | EURACTIV.de)
Source: euractiv.com
