Turkish Armed Forces and Free Syrian Army (FSA) on Sunday took complete control of northwestern Syria’s Afrin<\/strong> town center, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Sunday.<\/p>\n “Afrin town center was completely taken control of at 8.30 a.m.,” Erdogan said during his address at the ceremony of 103rd anniversary of Gallipoli Campaign.<\/p>\n “We will have to take necessary steps to rebuild Afrin, raise infrastructure and wipe out traces of terrorists,” he said, adding: “Turkish, Free Syrian Army\u2019s flags are hoisted in Afrin town center.”<\/p>\n “We are not there to occupy but to wipe out terror groups and to achieve peace in Afrin,” Erdogan added.<\/p>\n Turkish General Staff, in a written statement, said search for mines, improvised explosive devices are in progress in the town.<\/p>\n Turkey on Jan. 20 launched Operation Olive Branch<\/strong> to remove PYD\/PKK and Daesh terrorists from Afrin.<\/p>\n According to the Turkish General Staff, the operation aims to establish security and stability along Turkey’s borders and the region as well as protect Syrians from terrorist cruelty and oppression.<\/p>\n The operation is being carried out under the framework of Turkey\u2019s rights based on international law, UN Security Council resolutions, its self-defense rights under the UN charter, and respect for Syria’s territorial integrity, it said.<\/p>\n The military has also said that only terrorist targets are being destroyed and “utmost care” is being taken to avoid harming any civilians.<\/p>\n Afrin has been a major hideout for the PYD\/PKK since July 2012, when the Assad regime in Syria left the city to the terror group without a fight.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Turkish forces enter Afrin town center without encountering any resistance from terrorists \/ Turkey, Free Syrian Army take complete control of Afrin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":60347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,63,118,14],"tags":[77861,77866,9002,77182],"class_list":["post-60345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-hot","category-world","tag-afrin","tag-operation-olive-branch","tag-syria","tag-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}