Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday afternoon said the ongoing in northwestern Afrin region of Syria will be completed "in very short time".
Erdoğan said that Afrin's population consists of 55 percent of Arabs, 35 percent of Kurdish people who were inhabited and 6-7 percent of Syrian Turkmen people.
"Now, the main objective is to hand Afrin over to its true owners. What is our goal? Do we have 3.5 million Syrian refugees living on our lands? Yes, we do. Our target is to repatriate these Syrian brothers and sisters as soon as possible. There are current steps taken in this direction," he said.
He was addressing a congress of the women's branch of his ruling AKP party in the northwestern city of Bursa on Sunday, a day after Turkey launched an air and ground offensive in Syria's Afrin.
However, on January 16, asked if Ankara-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) militant group would be involved in the operation against Afrin, Erdoğan told reporters in parliament: "Of course they will, together. This struggle is being conducted for them. Not for us."
Syrian President Bashar Assad said on Sunday that Turkey's offensive against Syria's Afrin was along the lines of the country's policy which is built upon the support for terrorists. Iran also called for a quick end to a Turkish incursion into Syria's Afrin province, saying it may help terrorist groups.
