Turkey’s war in northern Syria, where it is fighting the YPG forces, has been met with several difficulties. Firstly the opposition is proving to be a bit more professional than they thought (the YPG fighters have learned guerrilla warfare during their two year battle with ISIS and know the terrain very well) and secondly they are receiving fierce diplomatic backlash, no less so than from their NATO ally the USA.
During a press briefing, US State Department spokesperson Miss Heather Nauert claimed in no uncertain terms that Turkey “has taken its eye off the ball, ISIS”.
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Whilst the US admits that it still regards the PKK, which Turkey claims is backing the YPG fighters as being truly responsible for the buildup at their southern front, as a terrorist organization, it does not share Turkey’s view that the YPG and the PKK are similar.
Also, the YPG fighters, who are widely sharing their small victories against the Turkish army on the internet whenever they can, have now called publicly on the Syrian rebel groups in the country to fight alongside them against these ‘Turkish invaders’. Should that happen, and the YPG press office claims it has already happened, this would widen the war even further.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Afrin update: First foreign volunteers to join fight against Turkish attack on Afrin, the YPG says: "The fighters have arrived in Afrin to join the resistance" <a href="https://t.co/wrNzDmSq7g">https://t.co/wrNzDmSq7g</a> <a href="https://t.co/rLiWz6KX9x">pic.twitter.com/rLiWz6KX9x</a></p>— Wladimir (@vvanwilgenburg) <a href="https://twitter.com/vvanwilgenburg/status/956857827322101760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 26, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Lastly, Turkish President Erdogan decided to take his war of words against the US backed forces of the YPG one step further in response, labeling the rebel forces in Northern Syria which his army is fighting simply as ‘Crusaders', a term which reminds Muslims worldwide of the holy war fought between Christians and Islam during the timeframe mostly known as the Dark Ages.
<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Erdogan refers to International members of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/YPG?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#YPG</a>/<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/YPJ?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#YPJ</a>, as ‘crusaders'. The idiot does not know that Saladin who defeated the Crusaders was Kurdish, NOT one of Erdogan's Turkish ancesstors! <a href="https://t.co/4I65HYmFtE">pic.twitter.com/4I65HYmFtE</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/KeyvanSoltany?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KeyvanSoltany</a></p>— Tarek Fatah (@TarekFatah) <a href="https://twitter.com/TarekFatah/status/956666169875992578?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 25, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Erdogan said he will go all the way to Iraq if necessary!