Turkey Says Mass Grave Found in Syrian Region

Ankara said Thursday it had uncovered a mass grave containing dozens of bodies in a Turkish-held region of Syria, accusing a US-backed Kurdish militia of the killings. 

But local authorities in the northern region of Afrin and a Syrian rights group said it was an informal cemetery and not a mass grave, disputing Turkey's accusations. 

Turkey and its Syrian proxies have seized control of territory inside Syria since 2016 in military operations against the Islamic State (IS) and the Kurdish YPG militia. 

In March 2018, they seized the town of Afrin after pushing out Syrian Kurdish forces. 

On Thursday, the governor of Turkey's Hatay province on the border with Syria told reporters a mass grave was found with 61 bodies in the Afrin area.

"This is a crime against humanity," Rahmi Dogan said, blaming the YPG, which is backed by Washington.

"I think the number of bodies recovered will rise," he added, after the Turkish defense ministry initially put the number at 35 on Wednesday.

Images on Turkish television showed officials in hazmat suits surrounded by what appeared to be bodies in bags. 

Dogan said Turkish authorities believe the dead were civilians executed by the YPG days before Turkey launched its so-called Olive Branch operation in 2018 to capture Afrin.

But authorities administering Afrin under Ankara's supervision told local reporters, including an AFP correspondent, that an informal cemetery, and not a mass grave, was unearthed.

They said the cemetery was established by the Syrian Democratic Force, the Kurdish administration's de-facto army.

Ibrahim Shaykho, a spokesperson for a Kurdish rights group monitoring violations in Afrin, said the informal cemetery was set up days before Ankara's Afrin invasion.

It contains bodies of fighters and civilians who had perished in Turkey's offensive and who could not be transported outside of Afrin because of a siege imposed by Ankara and its Syrian allies, Shaykho said. 

Turkey accuses the YPG -- a force backed by Western militaries against IS -- of being a "terrorist" offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The PKK, blacklisted by Ankara and its Western allies, has been waging an insurgency against Turkey since 1984, in a conflict which has killed more than 40,000 people.