Top US officials reject Turkey’s airstrikes in Northern Syria

Turkish forces expanded its bombardment on the northern countryside of Manbij, and the villages of Jat and Al- Hosharia as well as Ain Issa in al-Shahba canton and the countryside of Tal Tamr, ANHA reported.

Turkish army also shelled Damascus forces’ points in rural Kobani, ANHA said.

Brett McGurk, the White House co-ordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, said after the Turkish air strikes that Washington wanted “to make sure that nothing is done to destabilise the very difficult situation in North-East Syria”.

“We want to try and maintain stability there and obviously we do want to make sure that the border with Turkey is secure,” McGurk told a security conference in Manama, Bahrain.

The US State Department also rejected the offensive, according to the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC,) the political body of the de facto reigning structure in Northern Syria.

The representative of the SDC in the US, Sinem Muhammad said on Sunday that the “US Department of State informed the SDC office in the country of its rejection of any [Turkish] military operation, whether air or ground, against the areas held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in north and east Syria.”

Muhammad said that the US intends to keep its forces in the in their positions in north and northeast Syria, despite the repeated Turkish bombardment and Turkey’s attempt to impede the work of the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.

US Senator Chris Van Hollen also urged on Sunday the Biden Administration to “speak out forcefully” regarding a potential Turkish cross-border military operation in northern Syria.

“Here we go again. Erdogan has been saying for months that #Turkey would attack our Syrian Kurdish allies who led the fight against ISIS (see below). No one should be fooled now that he is doing so,” Van Hollen said on Twitter.