A border gate between Turkey and northern Syria's Afrin region is ready and will be opened next week, Turkey's Trade Minister was quoted by state media as saying on Tuesday, advancing a project aimed at speeding up aid and equipment flows.
The border crossing is dubbed "Olive Branch", named after Turkey's military operation last year when it drove out of Afrin Syrian YPG militants, which is a Syrian branch of the PKK terror group, that has been waging a terror campaign against Turkish states for more than three decades .
"Our Olive Branch border gate is ready. God willing, it will become operational next week," the trade minister, Ruhsar Pekcan, was cited by state-run Anadolu news agency as saying.
The Afrin operation was the Turkish military's second offensive into northern Syria. In the first operation, dubbed "Euphrates Shield", it drove Daesh militants from territory along the border in 2016.
