Mar 14, 2018, 3:10 PM

Erdogan ‘hopes’ Afrin to be captured ‘by this evening’

Erdogan ‘hopes’ Afrin to be captured ‘by this evening’

TEHRAN, Mar. 14 (MNA) – Turkey’s president said on Wednesday he hopes the northwestern Syrian city of Afrin would be captured “by this evening.”

The route terrorists use to enter and exit eastern Afrin will be closed soon, Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a gathering of village and neighborhood heads at the presidential complex in the capital Ankara.

Erdogan reiterated that in the Turkish-led Olive Branch Operation, the utmost care is being taken to avoid harming civilians, and that if they had not done so, the operation would have been over by now.

“All kinds of care is being taken. Look, right now, first civilians are being taken out of Afrin in vehicles through a special corridor,” Erdogan said.

“We will clear Afrin of terrorists, clear Manbij, and east of the Euphrates River to our border with northern Iraq, we will rid the terrorist from all of them the same way.”

Erdogan also said that the terrorists lack the ability to construct the tunnels in the mountains that they use.

“They have partners, too. They did this all together as coalition powers. The terrorists aren’t that smart, don’t be fooled,” he added.

“Today, as the operation entered its 54th day, almost 3,500 terrorists have been neutralized and about 1,300 square kilometers of land cleared of terrorists,” he said.

ANADOLU/MNA

News ID 132820

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