Richard Engel: ‘Highly Likely that, in Less than 24 Hours, the Turkish Offensive Is Going To Begin Again’

EXCERPT:

TUR: "And you spoke to the Kurdish military commander over the weekend and he seemed to tell you or he did tell you that he believes the Kurds are going to be facing an ethnic cleansing or are already starting to face one, right?"

ENGEL: "Oh, he thinks they are facing ethnic cleansing and that it is going to get a lot worse and that it’s going to get a lot worse in less than 24 hours when this U.S. brokered ceasefire with Turkey expires. There are no indications, unless there is some last-minute intervention, some last-minute diplomacy, no indications that this ceasefire is going to last because the Kurds and the Turks don’t agree on the terms of the ceasefire. The Turks think they’re supposed to take control of a very large safe zone here inside Syria. And the Kurds think that it’s much smaller and are not pulling out. I can tell you we’ve been told by U.S. officials and Kurdish officials that Kurdish forces have only pulled back from a small part of this so-called safe zone. So it seems highly likely that in less than 24 hours, that Turkish offensive is going to begin again."