Reactions to the 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria


The following is a list of reactions to the 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria.

Reactions in Turkey

A day prior to the operation, all Turkish opposition parties except the Peoples' Democratic Party voted to extend the mandate for the Turkish occupation of northern Syria. Opposition party leaders Meral Akşener, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, and Temel Karamollaoğlu, as well as the junior government partner, Nationalist Movement Party leader Devlet Bahçeli, expressed their support for the military operation. Akşener, Kılıçdaroğlu, and Bahçeli were directly informed of the operation by Turkish President Recep Erdoğan immediately after its launch. On 14 October, Turkish Minister of National Defence Hulusi Akar visited the opposition parties and informed them about the ongoing operation.
After the start of the operation, the opposition CHP began to criticize its implementation. A CHP spokesman lambasted Erdogan for "driving to the Middle East swamp" while CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu criticized the government for failing to respond to "humiliating" Twitter attacks from the Trump administration. and uniting the world against it with an "adventurous foreign policy."
Meanwhile on 15 October İyi Party leader Meral Akşener urged the government to make peace with Syria through dialogue with Bashar al-Assad.
The HDP condemned the operation from the start, calling it an "extremely dangerous and wrong step" and stating that "Turkey is being dragged into a dangerous and deep trap".
Erdoğan rejected international criticism and said referring to the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen: "Let me start with Saudi Arabia. Look in the mirror first.... Did tens of thousands of people not die in Yemen?" He also called Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi a "democracy killer" after the Egyptian Foreign Ministry called the offensive an "invasion."

Religious communities and organisations

UN-member states

The Turkish lira weakened to 5.88 against dollar on 10 October as investors fretted about negative international reaction to the offensive. Turkey's BIST100 Index was down 0.64% On 14 October, BIST100 Index was down by 5 percent. Although on 15 October, Turkish lira raised against dollar and BIST100 gained 1.71% after Trump administration announced sanctions on Turkey. Analysts describe the sanctions as "relatively light" and "window dressing". The Turkish lira firmed to 5.75 against the dollar on 18 October after the ceasefire deal with the US where as BIST100 Index was up 3.82%.
On the other hand, Brent crude was up 22 cents at $58.44 a barrel, and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $52.59, down 4 cents.

Cultural boycott

The Iranian-Kurdish artist Kayhan Kalhor canceled a concert in Istanbul to protest the Turkish offensive.