18 March 2018: a clear Conquest

The 57th day of Turkey's Operation Olive Branch against the terror hubs in Afrin coincided with the 103rd anniversary of the Çanakkale Victory. Thus Almighty God granted this nation to experience and celebrate a double victory festival on March 18. The coincidence between this victory falling on the 57th day and the 57th Regiment of Çanakkale is also noteworthy.

That President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gave the first news of this approaching victory, which could be attained at any moment, the day before yesterday from Mardin and Diyarbakır, and that this good news was received with great joy and enthusiasm by the Kurdish, Arab and other peoples of Diyarbakır and Mardin filling the squares and halls, added a further meaning to this victory.

Perhaps among these coincidences the most striking meaning is the wide goodwill with which the fact has been received that, as our President has declared repeatedly, this operation is in no way against the Kurds or any ethnic group. In Turkey, the propaganda apparatuses of the PKK and HDP line frequently try to portray this operation as a Turkish operation against the Kurds.

Unfortunately, the Dubai-based Arab media, and many Europe-based media organizations as well, present the event this way in all their reports. Yet when Erdoğan gave this good news yesterday from Mardin and Diyarbakır, the indescribable enthusiasm and affection displayed by the crowds, made up mostly of Kurds, gave the clearest answer to these broadcasts.

Turkey is conducting an operation against the PKK-PYD, and it has now become plain for everyone that this fierce organization is acting not on behalf of the Kurds, but on behalf of forces hostile to all the peoples of the region, who put the weapons in their hands.

In my view, the most important dimension of the Olive Branch victory Turkey reached on March 18 has been the lesson in humanity Turkey gave, through its operation against terror, to the so-called civilized world. Turkey said: an operation against terror is not done that way, it is done this way.

All the cities that America enters to fight terror are devastated and ruined. In every operation far more women, children and civilians die than terrorists. After each of the US's struggles with terror, terror grows even stronger, because it always points to terror while striking somewhere else. Every operation it carries out leaves behind countless deaths, orphans, widows and cripples. Afterwards the US takes no responsibility for any of the problems it has caused, and leaves the people of the region to their own devices.

The US has come almost to the point of drilling into the world that this is the norm, the normal, of fighting terror. We see the same thing in what the Assad regime does to its own people. The toll of the massacres it caused while fighting its own opponents can no longer even be reckoned. It is certain that it has exceeded one million. It burned and destroyed its own cities.

Iran, which rushed to its aid and claims to be a so-called Islamic Republic, followed no Islamic principle in this process. In the name of protecting Syria against the so-called Zionist front, it brought it to the brink of extinction. We are not even counting Russia. The massacres they carried out in Ghouta together with Assad, whom it is supporting these days, are plain to see.

The Turkish soldiers and FSA units who entered Afrin in Operation Olive Branch entered a spotlessly clean city. While fighting, while choosing their targets, they tried, with a meticulousness like looking for a needle in a haystack, to ensure that not even one civilian was affected by this operation. The result can be seen clearly from the view of the Afrin city center where the flag was planted. If you place side by side the images of Raqqa or Mosul immediately after their "liberation" (!) by the US together with the PYD legionaries, and the images of Afrin, liberated by Turkey as of yesterday, you will see this difference most clearly.

It has delivered the most effective message that could be given since the day the crisis in Syria began. The rest, of course, is left to those who wish to understand. What strategy other than a malign intent can there be behind building up one terrorist organization to fight another terrorist organization, and doing business with it? With Operation Olive Branch, Turkey not only clearly showed that this organization has nothing to do with the Kurds, it also showed at every step that this organization has no agenda of fighting DAESH. While showing most clearly, through the buildups it made, its war preparations, its arms and munitions equipment, that its only target was Turkey, it also exposed that this target was not outside the knowledge of those who support it. Thus Turkey brought all the frauds to light. The US now has no story it can tell Turkey.

This great victory, named on March 18, 2018, is a clear conquest. Turkey has entered Afrin in a way that allows the people of Afrin to return and settle in peace. As it did before in Jarablus and al-Bab. The liberated areas are being made safe to live in for their own people. Just as no one living there has been forced to leave their home, the conditions are being provided for the return to their homes of those who had been forced to migrate earlier. Indeed, nearly 150 thousand people have returned to their homes and resettled in the Euphrates Shield region.

Praise and thanks be to Almighty God, who granted us this conquest on such a day. We thank very much our President and Commander-in-Chief, the honorable Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has led this operation from the beginning with his sagacity, perseverance and determination, in this beauty and nobility, and all the heroic Mehmetçik soldiers of the Prophet's Hearth. We ask Almighty God's mercy for all our soldiers who attained martyrdom on this path, and for the FSA mujahideen.

May our Victory of March 18, 2018 be blessed.