Syrian tribes sent a message after meeting with a delegation from the Syrian government in Hama

The Syrian tribes expressed their categorical rejection of Turkey’s operations in Syria and Ankara’s initiative to establish the safe zone, pledging to defend the country against any form of aggression.

The Syrian news agency SANA reported that the town of Athria in rural Aleppo on Friday hosted an expanded meeting of “tribes, clans and national elites” that included thousands of participants, including personalities from Iraq and Lebanon.

The agency said that the meeting aimed to “send a message to the whole world that the Syrians in all their strata and sects stand united in defending the unity of the land and the sovereignty of the homeland in the face of external threats and aggression and in support of the Syrian Arab army in confronting these threats”.

“The Syrian people are determined to defend themselves, their lands and their sovereignty by all means against any form of aggression, including the American and Turkish occupation of Syrian territory”, the participants said.

The participants stressed in their statement that Syria is “one independent homeland and the sons of the island, who are committed to their homeland, state, army and leadership, asserting that the flag of the country is the flag of the Syrian Arab Republic, which symbolizes its sovereignty and sanctity and expresses its categorical rejection of the so-called safe security zone in the north of the country”.

The statement also stressed the independence and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and the rejection of any partition plan under any name.

The letter came as Turkish government promised in late 2018 to postpone its new military operation in Syria “against the terrorists” to set up a safe zone in northern Syria under an agreement with the United States, in an act of violation of Syria’s sovereignty.