The Turkish Armed Forces launched the ‘Operation Olive Branch’ on January 20, 2018, in Syria’s north-western Afrin region in order to establish security and stability of our borders and region, to eliminate terrorists of PKK/KCK/PYD-YPG and DAESH, and to save the friendly and brotherly people of the region from their oppression and persecution.

The Operation is being conducted under the framework of Turkey’s rights based on international law, in particular the UN Security Council resolutions on counter-terrorism and as per the self-defence rights under the UN Charter and while being respectful to Syria’s territorial integrity, the operation targets only terrorists and their shelters, positions, weapons, tools and equipment and all kinds of attention and sensitivity is being shown to ensure the safety of the civilian and innocent people in the region.

However, members of terrorist organizations and their supporters, who are not able to defeat the Turkish Soldiers in the field, resort to perception operations involving unrealistic messages in order to distort the goals and objectives of the operation with publications on their social media accounts and other media organs. For the purpose of deceiving the national and world public opinion, the images of events that took place in different countries and at different times are displayed as if they occurred within the scope of the operation.

The General Directorate of Press and Information, in order to neutralize terrorists’ and their supporters’ efforts and provide accurate knowledge to the regional and world public opinion regarding the operation, has prepared this work which shows the actual places and times of the images shared in the disinformation campaigns that have been identified by experts from DGPI, AA, and TRT. Thus, it is aimed to prevent media organs from, knowingly or unknowingly, participating in sharing of the distorted messages of these terrorist elements.

Related Documents

Disinformation Campaigns Against Operation Olive Branch.pdf