Erdoğan’s son-in-law: Turkey is officially at war

Berat Albayrak, Turkey’s energy minister and son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on Sunday said Turkey is not de facto but officially at war in the Afrin region of Syria against not only terrorist organizations but also the forces behind them, the Hürriyet daily reported.

“Turkey is now not de facto but officially at war. You see what happened in Afrin? Are we at war with some terrorist organizations or some marauders? You see who’s behind them, don’t you?” Albayrak said during a ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) meeting in the Zeytinburnu district of İstanbul.

ERDOĞAN’S SON: TURKEY SAVED ITS SKIN FROM THE WEST

Meanwhile, Bilal Erdoğan, the son of President Erdoğan, said on Friday in İzmit that Turkey no longer needed to shape its future according to the West, the BirGün daily reported .

Bilal Erdoğan talked about Turkey’s military campaigns against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) both inside and outside Turkey and said that Turkey acted nowadays under the principle that an offence is the best form of defence.  “When we do that, we do not care who said this, who said that, the ambassador of some country said this, or the foreign minister of some country said that. We say it as Turkey, and we need to do what is best for our defence,” he said.

“Turkey is a strong country, Turkey is a country that pretends to shape its future with its young and dynamic population. Believe this, if Muslims are going to leave their mark on the 21st century, Turkey should assume its leadership,”he added.

According to Bilal Erdoğan Turkey now shapes its future in consonance with its culture, values and beliefs. “We no longer need to be the buttress of the West; we saved ourselves from the need to colour ourselves with their colours, to shape our future according to their words. As the phrase goes, we saved our skin,” said Erdoğan.

Ankara has strongly criticized the US for supporting Kurdish groups in Syria. The Turkish military and Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters on Jan. 20 launched Operation Olive Branch in the Afrin region of Syria against the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD), which Turkey sees as the Syrian extension of the outlawed PKK.

The Turkish military said on March 18 it had taken complete control of the Afrin town center. (SCF with turkishminute.com)

Take a second to support Stockholm Center for Freedom on Patreon!
Become a patron at Patreon!