President Hassan Rouhani called on Turkey to stop its military operation in the northern Syrian enclave of Afrin against Kurdish militants, saying it will only result in more deaths on both sides.
In a press conference on Tuesday, the president said Tehran believes “a military foreign intervention should be based on the authorization of the host country and its people,” Al Jazeera reported.
“We wish that Turkey’s operation in Syria will end at the earliest time.”
The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which is aligned with Iran, has condemned the Afrin operation.
The Syrian Kurdish armed group YPG and its other Syrian Kurdish affiliates control a swathe of land in northern Syria, and were credited with defending the Kurds from the self-styled Islamic State terror group.
But Turkey considers the YPG and its political wing PYD to be “terrorist groups” with ties to the banned PKK, which has been fighting Ankara for decades.
On January 20, Turkey and allied armed groups launched the operation against the YPG inside northwestern Syria.
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