Turkey seeks to turn Syria into terror base: Jaafari

Syria’s UN envoy Bashar al-Jaafari accuses neighboring Turkey of rallying Takfiri terrorists from many countries to turn the Arab state into a terror base.

Addressing a Security Council session on protecting the international peace and security in New York on Monday, Jaafari added that Turkey sends criminal terrorists and foreign mercenaries to Syria to establish their self-proclaimed state and make it a base for terrorism.

These terrorists will be set off from Syria to the neighboring countries and the whole world, Jaafari added.

“Training foreign mercenaries in camps, supervised by the US Pentagon in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and Jordan and sending them through borders to fight the Syrian state is a flagrant violation of the simplest UN principles,” the diplomat added.

He also described Ankara’s move as “an unjustifiable breach by the US to Security Council resolutions No. 2170, 2178 and 2199.”

Turkey’s military operation in Syria

Turkish ground troops supported by warplanes entered the Syrian territory late Saturday in an alleged attempt to evacuate the garrison guarding the Ottoman tomb of Suleyman Shah, which was surrounded by the ISIL Takfiri militants.

The tomb was located just over the border near the Kurdish town of Kobani, which was recently liberated from the ISIL.

Around 40 soldiers, including 20 elite troops from the Turkish special forces, were said to be guarding the tomb of Suleyman Shah, the grandfather of Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman Empire.

Reports said 700 elite Turkish troops were involved in the Sunday offensive.

The Syrian government on Sunday denounced the Turkish army’s incursion into the Syrian territory as an act of “flagrant aggression” and held Ankara responsible for the repercussions of the operation.

Speaking in a news conference later on Sunday, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said his country had already informed its allies in the so-called anti-ISIL coalition of the operation.