Erdogan hopes Turkish forces will have completely encircled Afrin by Wednesday, March 14, evening, a presidential source said, clarifying his earlier comments in a speech indicating the Kurdish-held Syrian city would fall by then.
"It sounds like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is daydreaming when he says Afrin will fall tonight," said Redur Xelil, a senior official of the YPG, which hold the city.
"In the president's speech the sentence 'I hope that Afrin will have completely fallen by the evening' should be understood as 'the encirclement will have been completed by the evening'," said a Turkish presidential source in a message to media, asking not to be named.
Erdogan had earlier stated in a speech at the presidential palace in Ankara that Afrin would fall by the evening to the Turkish army and Syrian allies, a claim rejected by the YPG.
Afrin city is the key target in Turkey's seven-week operation Olive Branch launched on January 20 and aimed at ousting the YPG from the Afrin region of northern Syria.
Reporter's code: 50101