Erdogan: Turkey is ready to liberate Raqqa

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his country is ready to move towards the Syrian city of Raqqa in Aleppo’s countryside to liberate it from Daesh on condition that terrorists are not involved in the operation, the Safa news agency reported yesterday.

Erdogan reiterated that Turkey is moving to have a “terror-free zone” in Al-Bab neighbourhood in the northern part of Syria, noting that his country had a goal to form “a 5,000 square kilometre terror-free zone” around Raqqa.

He said that there are certain sides which insist that Turkey does not have to control Al-Baba, but the Syrian opposition groups backed by Turkey are going to make it.

“They say: ‘Do not go to Al-Bab’. We are obliged to, we will go there,” he said, “We have to prepare a region cleansed from terror.”

Turkey does not only consider Daesh a terrorist organisation, but also the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and People’s Protection Units (YPG) which are affiliated to the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).