'Trump's threats don't comply with state seriousness'

By Muhammet Emin Avundukluoglu

ANKARA (AA) - U.S. President Donald Trump's remarks regarding Turkey's planned safe zone operation do not comply with "state seriousness", Turkey's opposition Good (IYI) Party leader said on Tuesday.

"[The remarks] are a paragon of insolence. Threatening the Republic of Turkey and Turkish nation, I clearly say, is a diplomatic scandal," Meral Aksener told her party's parliamentary group.

Aksener noted that "the alliance and friendship" were seriously injured between the two countries with such kind of threats.

Trump threatened Turkey with economic collapse Monday should Ankara take action in Syria he deems "off limits", ahead of a planned operation in the country's northeast.

"As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!)," Trump wrote on Twitter.

Aksener stressed Turkey should give an appropriate response to Trump's remarks by defeating terrorists in northern Syria.

"This is what our nation and we expect," she added.

Since 2016, Turkey’s Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations in northwestern Syria have liberated the region from YPG/PKK and Daesh terrorists, making it possible for nearly 400,000 Syrians who fled the violence to return home to Western Syria.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU -- has been responsible for the deaths 40,000 people, including women, children and infants. The YPG is the Syrian branch of the terrorist organization PKK.