Egypt slams Turkey’s Syria offensive

Cairo: Egypt Wednesday evening condemned as a “blatant aggression” a Turkish incursion into Syria’s north-eastern Syria that initiated earlier in the day.

“This move constitutes an unacceptable aggression on the sovereignty of a sisterly Arab country and exploits the current circumstances there,” the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Egypt added that the world community, mainly the UN Security Council, is responsible for standing firm against the Turkish offensive that Cairo said it condemns in the “strongest terms”.

Egypt also called for holding an emergency Arab League to discuss the Turkish attack and ways to preserve Syria’s territorial integrity.

Egypt’s relations with Turkey have strained over the latter’s overt backing of the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

“The international community has to halt any efforts aimed at occupying Syrian land or carrying out demographic engineering in order to modify the population structure in northern Syria,” the Egyptian statement said.