Expect move against terrorists soon: Erdoğan

ANKARA- Anadolu Agency

Turkey's president told military cadets on May 8 that they could soon expect a new counter-terrorist operation across the border into northern Syria.       

“You will soon clear Manbij and east of the Euphrates River of terrorist groups," Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told cadets at the National Defense University in the capital Ankara.       

The Turkish army is "the greatest power" against those who want to besiege the country via terrorist groups, he said, in his address after a fast-breaking meal for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.       

He added that Turkish soldiers made history with two previous successful counter-terrorist operations in Syria since 2016, Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch.       

A mission east of the Euphrates River, which Erdoğan has been suggesting for months, would- like its predecessors- be meant to eradicate the presence of YPG- the Syrian offshoot of the illegal PKK- and ISIL near Turkey's borders.       

PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU.

In the meantime, Turkish and Russian foreign ministers discussed Syria via telephone on May 8, according to a Turkish diplomatic source.     

Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu offered his condolences to Sergey Lavrov for a deadly plane crash on May 6 when a Superjet-100 plane with 78 people on-board, traveling from Moscow to Murmansk, caught fire soon after take-off and asked for an emergency landing. At least 41 people were killed.