Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday declared a three-month state of emergency in ten provinces due to Monday’s devastating earthquakes. The focus on reconstruction did not prevent Turkish forces from bombing Kurdish militia positions in Syria.

According to Turkey’s Defense Ministry, “YPG/PKK terrorists” used multi-barrel rocket launchers in the Tal Rifaat region to fire on a Turkish border outpost in Kilis province. There was no reported damage and no casualties, but Turkish forces launched a retaliatory strike on Tuesday.

The YPG is a Syrian Kurdish militia that was allied with Western forces during the war against the Islamic State. The PKK is a militant Kurdish separatist group in Turkey. The Turkish government considers the YPG and PKK to be one and the same, frequently accusing the more respectable YPG militia of providing cover for PKK activities in areas it controls. Turkey has launched several military incursions into Syria to push all Kurdish forces back from the border.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency blamed the United States and Russia for not doing enough to keep Syrian Kurdish militants at bay, so Turkey had to take care of business with “a trio of successful anti-terror operations across its border” in 2016, 2018, and 2019.

source breitbart.com