Erdogan rebuffs Moscow’s call to hand Afrin to Syrian government
Russia wants Turkey to hand control of Afrin province to Damascus, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the territory will be returned to local residents at Ankara’s discretion.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday rejected a call by Moscow to hand control of Afrin province to the Syrian government, saying Ankara would withdraw its forces when it felt the time was right.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at an April 9 news conference that Moscow expects Turkey to relinquish Afrin to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after having driven out the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in March. He asserted that Erdogan had “never said that Turkey wants to occupy Afrin.”
“We always proceed from the fact that the easiest way to normalize the situation in Afrin, now that Turkish representatives say that the main goals they set there have been achieved, would be to return the territory under the control of the Syrian government,” Lavrov said.
Speaking to reporters, Erdogan called Lavrov’s remarks “a very wrong approach. We know full well to whom we will give back Afrin.” He added, “We will personally hand over Afrin to the people of Afrin when the time is right. But the timing of this is up to us. We will decide this, not Mr. Lavrov.”
