WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The media reported on Monday that a train carrying military vehicles of the Turkish Armed Forces on Monday arrived to the southeastern Turkish province of Gaziantep near the border with Syria.
“As long as the Turks are fighting ISIS [Daesh], it’s good for Syrian people,” Barabandi said on Monday. “The Russians till today didn’t attack ISIS, the regime didn’t attack ISIS. Hezbollah, Iran, they didn’t attack ISIS. So when there come some groups which happens to be Turkish and they are attacking ISIS, we saw them in the al Bab we saw them in the North, Euphrates Shield… If some groups come to defeat ISIS, I mean, what we can do, that’s good. Better than letting ISIS flourishing.”
“We always prefer to have the Syrian national forces fight ISIS,” he added. “We don’t need any foreign powers.”
Military personnel and 22 armored personnel carriers were transported by train to be used in the Operation Euphrates Shield in northern Syria, the Anadolu news agency reported citing an anonymous military source.
Turkey began the Operation Euphrates Shield on August 24, 2016. Together with the Syrian opposition Turkey took over the cities of Jarabulus and Al Bab in the north of Syria.
The military conflict in Syria has been continuing since March 2011. Since September 2015, at request by Syrian President Bashar Assad, Russia has been providing military aid to the government.
Apart from conducting airstrikes on terrorist targets, Russia has been an initiator of intra-Syrian talks in Astana, which supplemented the Geneva talks. Along with Turkey, Russia is a guarantor of a nationwide Syrian ceasefire regime that took effect on December 30 last year.
On February 19, UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said the talks on Syrian ceasefire held between Russia and Turkey had more chances to succeed than any other discussions.
