AKP Leader and Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdoğan spoke before his party’s Afyonkarahisar provincial congress and, mentioning the invasion attacks on Afrin, said: “We have martyrs, some 30 Mehmetcik (colloquial term for Turkish army soldiers) and 60 and then some from the FSA. Right now, they have covered 300 square km of area, Allah willing.”

“A WEEK TOPS”?

Erdoğan was previously talking about completing the invasion in a short time, but has since backpedaled from this claim. Erdoğan has forgotten the “3 hours, 3 days, 1 week” times he cited before and is now saying, “Even though we regressed from 18 million square kilometers of land to 780.000 square kilometers, we praise and we are patient. It is not in my power to give an exact date. Right now we continue on with all the effort we can.”

Erdoğan also gave information on the number of soldiers who died that is contradictory to his previous statements.