Turkey beefs up military reinforcements near Syria border amid growing tension with Kurds: report

DAMASCUS, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Turkish army is beefing up military presence amid high-security alert near the Syrian border Tuesday evening, just as Ankara is bracing to attack a Kurdish-held region in northern Syria, pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV reported.

Reinforcements of the Turkish forces kept arriving at a Turkish border region near the Kurdish-held Afrin region in the northern province of Aleppo, said the report.

It added that high-security alert was noticed on the Turkish side of the border near the Kurdish-controlled Ayn al-Arab, or Kobane, in another part of the northern countryside of Aleppo.

The military tension comes hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the military campaign against the Kurdish forces in Afrin will be supported by Turkey-backed Syrian rebels, according to the report.

The Turkish president also vowed to eliminate a 30,000-strong security forces which are being currently formed by the United States in Kurdish-held areas in northeastern Syria.

Erdogan branded the new U.S.-backed army as a "terrorist army," the latest escalation of tension with Washington over the thorny Kurdish issue in Syria.

Erdogan's government has for long opposed the growing influence of the Kurds in northern Syria, fearing any separatist sentiment could inspire Turkey's 14 million Kurds.

The Turkish leader also vowed to eliminate the Kurdish threat in northern Syria through an anticipated military campaign in Afrin.

In his speech Tuesday, Erdogan urged NATO to take a stand on U.S.-backed Syrian border forces, which would be created from the Kurdish-dominated People's Protection Units (YPG), which is regarded as a terror group by Turkey.

"I would like to call upon NATO ..., you have to take actions against the ones who threaten the border security of your allies," he said.

On Sunday, reports cited the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition as saying that the U.S. is working to form a 30,000-strong border security force, which will be under the command of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurds, Arabs, and Assyrians supported by the U.S. in northern Syria.

The force will be deployed in northeastern Syria along the border with both Turkey and Iraq, a move that was met with vehement condemnation from the Syrian government and its Russian ally, as well as Turkey.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry slammed the decision on Monday, saying the U.S. bid to form an armed militia in northern Syria is "a flagrant violation of Syria's sovereignty."

The U.S. declaration "constitutes a flagrant aggression on the unity and sovereignty of Syria and a violation of the international law," the ministry said, vowing Syrian government's resolve to end the U.S. presence in the war-torn country.

Russia, Syrian government's main international ally, expressed fears that the United States is "pursuing a policy to cut Syria into several pieces."

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday that the United States does not intend to preserve Syria's sovereignty, accusing Washington of seeking to create a Kurdish-controlled entity along the Turkish and Iraqi border zones. Enditem