As casualties rise on both sides in Turkey's offensive in Syria, Ankara is pursuing a plan that goes beyond putting an end to the domination of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). President Recep Tayyip Erdogan incessantly refers to a project to settle "the real owners of the area" in Afrin province.

He has two groups in mind: the band of militias that the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) employs in the field called the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and the crush of Syrian refugees in Turkey.

Explaining his plans for Afrin at a Jan. 24 meeting at the presidential complex, Erdogan said, “First, we will wipe out the terrorists and then make the place livable. For whom? For 3.5 million Syrians who are our guests. We cannot forever house them in tents.”

Erdogan claimed, “In Afrin, 55% are Arabs, 35% are Kurds and the rest are Turkmens.” But Afrin has always been a Kurdish-dominated area. Although reliable figures aren't available, local sources insist that the Kurds constitute 70-90% of the population. In Afrin and its rural periphery, where Kurds make up the overwhelming majority, there are some Arabs, small groups of Turkmens in the northern rural area, Alawite Kurds in Mabata, Yazidi Kurds in Kastel Cindo and Ezaze and minor groups of Armenians and Circassians. With its longstanding relative stability, Afrin became a refuge for people escaping the Islamic State from Raqqa, Manbij, al-Bab and Jarablus.