Syria to be discussed at UN Security Council

ANKARA

The United Nations Security Council will hold talks about the situation in Syria on Jan. 22, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on his Twitter feed on Jan. 21.

He added that France would press for humanitarian access. Le Drian said earlier on Sunday that France had called for an emergency meeting of the Security Council over Syria following a Turkish incursion into northern Syria’s Afrin province.

He also condemned indiscriminate bombing by the Syrian regime in the Idlib province and asked for immediate access for humanitarian aid to eastern Ghouta, where 400,000 citizens face a critical situation.

However, referring to his phone conversation with the French minister on Jan. 21, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said France would take the issue of regime assaults in Idlib and East Ghouta.

“I don’t think they will carry the issue of our operation [into Afrin] to the U.N.,” he added.

Çavuşoğlu said he answered Le Drian’s questions about Operation Olive Branch and the French minister thanked him.

He told reporters in Baghdad on Jan. 21 that Turkey expected France to stand by an ally country and not with a “terrorist organization.”

“If France or any other country takes the issue to the U.N., then we will consider it as siding with a terrorist group, not with an ally. And we will treat it accordingly.” Çavuşoğlu stated.

Earlier in a statement, France urged Turkish authorities “to act with restraint in a context where the humanitarian situation is deteriorating in several regions of Syria.”

The Turkish military launched a cross border land operation into the Syrian province of Afrin on Jan. 20 to fight the Syrian Kurdish militia the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a group Ankara has deemed a “terrorist group” for its links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).