Zafer Fatih Beyaz and Serdar Acil
October 25, 2019•Update: October 25, 2019
ANKARA
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denunciated on Friday the editor-in-chief and also a reporter of France's Le Point magazine over an insulting magazine cover.
The president's lawyer Huseyin Aydin filed a criminal complaint over the magazine's Oct. 24 issue which described Erdogan as "the eradicator" and accused him of "ethnic cleansing".
Turkish presidential aide Ibrahim Kalin on Thursday slammed the magazine saying: "It is clear why they [the French] attack our president. They are in panic as their game was spoiled and their pawn in Syria, PKK, suffered a heavy blow."
He recalled France's troubled history of colonizing much of North Africa, their massacre of thousands, and involvement in slave trade.
"Your days of colonialism are over," Kalin said, and stressed that the Kurds are not and will not be their proxy.
On Oct. 9, Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring to eliminate terrorists from northern Syria east of the Euphrates River to secure Turkey’s borders, aid in the safe return of Syrian refugees and ensure Syria’s territorial integrity.
In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union -- has been responsible for deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children and infants. The YPG is the Syrian offshoot of the PKK.
* Writing by Jeyhun Aliyev
