The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) made a press statement in Raqqa regarding the increasingly ongoing attacks in Afrin, Shehba, Aleppo and its surroundings.

The statement read by the Co-Presidency of the Autonomous Administration included the following:

“First of all, we strongly condemn the attack on Syrian territory by the Turkish state and the mercenaries it supports, and we salute the historic resistance of our people in Aleppo and Shehba.

This aggression is a continuation of the plan that the Turkish state failed to achieve through ISIS, with its aim being to invade Syria and realise the borders of ‘Misak-ı Milli’ (The so-called ‘National Pact’ refers to a political declaration made by the leaders of the Ottoman Empire in 1920 during the First World War. The oath defined the territorial borders – including Kurdish settlement areas in present-day Iraq and Syria – and the basic principles for Turkey’s future policy. Today, Turkish nationalists often refer to the ‘National Pact’ to formulate their aspirations for Turkey’s territorial expansion). This aggression aims to occupy and divide Syria and turn it into a centre of international terrorism.

The attacks that started in Aleppo and Hama threaten not only a certain region but the whole of Syria. Therefore, we call on all the components of our peoples in North and East Syria to understand that the aim of this attack is to destroy the hopes of the Syrian peoples to live in freedom and dignity, to target the Democratic Autonomous Administration project and to try to annex new regions to Turkey's territory.

As Arab, Kurdish, Syriac-Assyrian and Turkmen peoples, we must stand united against this aggression. We invite our young people and young women to unite around the Syrian Democratic Forces.

In this context, we declare general mobilisation and call on our people to be on alert at all times. In addition, all our institutions must be at work on full alert and each of them must be prepared for the challenges posed by this attack by working as a crisis desk.

We also appeal to the international community: stop this aggression! Otherwise, this will be a new form of ISIS terrorism that will lead to major humanitarian disasters, pose a threat to Syria and have serious regional and global consequences.”