NATO Defence Ministers lash out at Turkey for its military operation in Syria

NATO defence ministers have slammed Turkey for its military operation in Syria. The first day of a two-day meeting of the ministers in Brussels was dominated by the issue, with Turkey isolated among the 29 member states.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stressed that the ministers agreed on the need to maintain our unity in the fight against ISIS.

Germany presented an idea to deploy international troops to create a security zone in northeast Syria. The top commander of Syria's Kurdish force, Mazloum Abdi, welcomed the proposal. Stoltenberg said, instead of this plan, they stressed their broad support for ways to engage the international community to find a political situation in northern Syria.

Meanwhile, the US Defence Department has said that it is planning to beef up its presence in the northeast corner of Syria to protect oil fields there from being retaken by the Islamic State terror group. A defence official said, the US is committed to reinforcing its position, in coordination with its SDF partners, in northeast Syria with



additional military assets to prevent those oil fields from falling back to into the hands of ISIS or other destabilizing actors. 

Turkish and Syrian ambassadors clashed yesterday at their first UN Security Council encounter since Turkey launched a cross-border offensive earlier this month. Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari told council members his government condemns in the strongest terms the Turkish aggression. He accused the Europeans of creating the current situation. He said that these countries played a vital role in sponsoring secessionist, illegitimate militias in the northeast of Syria.

Turkey's ambassador, Feridun Sinirlioglu, called it a limited counter-terrorism operation to eliminate the longstanding existential terror threat along their border with Syria.  

Michael Barkin, a special advisor at the US Mission to the United Nations, told the council that the US is hopeful the permanent cease-fire will be honoured and civilians will be protected.