{"id":41083,"date":"2019-10-05T07:22:56","date_gmt":"2019-10-05T07:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41083"},"modified":"2019-10-05T07:22:56","modified_gmt":"2019-10-05T07:22:56","slug":"secondary-school-reopened-named-after-mo-salah-in-his-hometown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41083","title":{"rendered":"Secondary school reopened, named after Mo Salah in his hometown"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"63\">\n<p class=\"rtejustify\">\nBEIRUT: Turkey-backed Syrian opposition fighters pledged on Friday to back a potential cross-border offensive that Ankara has threatened to mount against Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria. The US-led coalition and Turkey conducted on Friday their third joint patrol in northeastern Syria, they said, part of a plan designed to defuse tensions between Washington\u2019s two allies \u2014 Ankara and the Syrian Kurds.<br \/>The two countries have agreed to set up a zone in northeast Syria along the border with Turkey, which wants to expel the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia from the frontier.<br \/>The patrol followed a telephone call late on Thursday between Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and US Defense Secretary Mark Esper in which Akar reiterated that Turkey woul not accept a delay in the creation of what it calls \u201ca safe zone\u201d and would act alone if necessary to set it up.<br \/>Turkey has accused the US, which helped the YPG defeat Daesh militants, of moving too slowly to establish the zone.<br \/>President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that given the lack of progress Turkey had no choice but to act alone \u2014 his most direct indication yet of a military incursion.<br \/>US support for YPG fighters has infuriated Ankara, which sees them as linked to the Kurdish PKK movement that has waged a decades-long insurgency inside Turkey.<br \/>\u201cWhen it comes to the east of the Euphrates (river) &#8230; it is our duty to fight,\u201d Salim Idris, an official of the Turkey-backed Syrian opposition, told a news conference in southeast Turkey. \u201cWe stand in full force in support of our Turkish brothers in fighting all forms of terrorism represented by the PKK gangs.\u201d<br \/>With ties between the NATO allies already under strain, diplomats and analysts say Erdogan would be unwilling to anger Washington with a full-scale incursion into northeast Syria, where US forces are stationed alongside the YPG.<\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"11\">\n<p>\nWhen it comes to the east of the Euphrates (river) &#8230; it is our duty to fight,\u201d Salim Idris, an official of the Turkey-backed Syrian opposition.<\/p>\n<p>\n<strong>Salim Idris, A Syrian opposition official<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"rtejustify\">\nBut Turkey, which has twice launched military offensives with its insurgent allies in northern Syria in recent years, has been pressing for more efforts to set up the border zone.<br \/>US and Turkish troops have so far carried out half-a-dozen joint air missions over northeast Syria and three land patrols, including one on Friday, in what Washington describes as \u201cconcrete steps\u201d to address Ankara\u2019s concerns.<br \/>Turkey, which backs opposition fighters holding tracts of territory in northwest Syria near its border, also has about a dozen military posts in the nearby Idlib region.<br \/>The Turkey-backed Syrian opposition also announced on Friday that a number of Idlib opposition factions were merging with the National Army, the main opposition grouping that Turkey supports in the northwest.<br \/>The move may help widen Ankara\u2019s influence in Idlib province, where militants formerly linked to Al-Qaeda are the dominant force.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BEIRUT: Turkey-backed Syrian opposition fighters pledged on Friday to back a potential cross-border offensive that Ankara has threatened to mount against Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria. The US-led coalition and Turkey conducted on Friday their third joint patrol in northeastern Syria, they said, part of a plan designed to defuse tensions between Washington\u2019s two allies&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":41084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}