Talk:Operation Olive Branch

Requested move 31 December 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Dr vulpes (Talk) 05:56, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

---

Operation Olive Branch → Turkish invasion of northwest Syria – Not usual to use operational title assigned by one of the parties, a more descriptive title is preferred, using this one as per the opening sentence of the lead Selfstudier (talk) 13:33, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose: vague title. Also Operation Olive Branch is the WP:COMMONNAME. Beshogur (talk) 13:36, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand this move. Even among "Afrin operation", "Afrin offensive", "Afrin invasion" search results, the invasion one is the most least one. The problem is with the lead.

• Afrin invasion 9
• Afrin offensive 71
• Afrin operation 205

Beshogur (talk) 13:41, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

There is Afrin offensive (January–March 2018) described as the "initial phase" of Operation Olive Branch. And there was 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria so Turkish (led/backed) offensive of northwest Syria is another idea. Selfstudier (talk) 14:41, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

The first one shouldn't even exist imo. It's the same thing. Also (January–March 2018) is absurd since there is no other "Afrin offensive". Beshogur (talk) 15:24, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Opened a merger. Pretty much redundant. For 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria, that's competely a different thing. Beshogur (talk) 15:29, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

For 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria, that's competely a different thing Sure, I was referring to the style of the name not the events. Selfstudier (talk) 16:08, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose: Per Beshogur, all reliable sources use the term "Operation Olive Branch", even the pro-AANES ones and academics. Applodion (talk) 12:56, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose the common name doesn't need to be accurate/descriptive and there are hundreds of examples to point to on Wikipedia. Traumnovelle (talk) 20:53, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Then one can hardly object if people complain about it being called an invasion. Selfstudier (talk) 21:02, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

No one else has agreed with your view that it can't be called an invasion if the title doesn't contain the term invasion. There is no policy nor guideline that supports your position. Traumnovelle (talk) 21:04, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

If there are more sources calling it an operation then that's what it should be called absent a consensus otherwise. The other way of dealing with an issue like this is to add one or more bolded akas to the lead sentence (aka as offensive/assault/whatever). Then you can use the different names with roughly equal frequency and noone will complain. Selfstudier (talk) 21:08, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Sources can use the name Operation Olive Branch and refer to it as an invasion, the two aren't mutually exclusive. [1] Traumnovelle (talk) 21:14, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

I just said that. Selfstudier (talk) 22:12, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

It's invasion according to some POV. It doesn't have characteristics of an invasion. That's all what's it about. Since the Syrian government doesn't even control those areas, did Turkey invade YPG territory? Is YPG a recognized entity? No. Did Turkey invade full scale? No, only with limited land support. Beshogur (talk) 16:18, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Doesn't have the characteristics ... Other than being a militarily transgression on the internationally recognised sovereign territory of another state ... a.k.a. invasion. Next we're going to be calling this a "special military operation". Iskandar323 (talk) 16:49, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes. It wasn't controlled by the legal Syrian government back then, but against a militant group. It had Syrian troops more than Turkish one, and part of the operation wasn't from the border to Syria but rebel held territory inside YPG held territory. Invading Syria from Syria? It wasn't a declaration of war. Turkey didn't annex anything from Syria. Thus making this not an invasion. I can understand leftist POV here. Oh the current invasion by the Turkish Armed Forces and Syrian National Army (SNA) in the Kurdish-majority Afrin District of northwest Syria, against the People's Protection Units (YPG) of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) makes more sense to be honest, rather than "invasion of Syria". Beshogur (talk) 17:03, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Syrian Kurds are Syrians like any other and Turkey never had any business intervening militarily in any way on Syrian soil. Turkey wasn't invited in by Damascus to handle its situation in the north, and per international law that makes it an aggressor and invader. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:16, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Technically they had the right as per the Adana Agreement TedKekmeister (talk) 22:25, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Support changing the current title to something more descriptive and consistent with US intervention in the Syrian civil war and 2024 Israeli invasion of Syria. Alaexis_¿question? 22:53, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Conversely, it would go against WP:COMMONNAME and Wikipedia:Reliable sources, as "Operation Olive Branch" is a term used by academic sources, whereas a new, descriptive title would be WP:OR. Applodion (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Support per MOS:CODENAME, which discourages the use of military codenames as titles in all but the most exceptional of circumstances, and WP:NCWWW, which calls for the when, where, what of events to be described for the sake of recognisability – on which note, the date wouldn't hurt either. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:00, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose, in addition to the above points, the proposed title is vague and therefore problematic. The area Operation Euphrates Shield concerned is also northwestern Syria. Are we going to fabricate another name and call this the Turkish invasion of the northwestern corner of Syria? Aintabli (talk) 05:46, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  That just calls got us to double down on: a date wouldn't hurt. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:50, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  That would be potentially misleading and unnecessarily lengthen the title. Anything including "Afrin" would be more descriptive. Aintabli (talk) 05:56, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  You're ignoring WP:COMMONNAME. Beshogur (talk) 14:20, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  We can ignore commonname if a consensus so decides, since there are grounds for doing so. Selfstudier (talk) 14:27, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  I mean "Turkish invasion of northwest Syria" is nowhere close to a descriptive title, maybe Afrin offensive is the closest thing to a commonname and descriptive title. Maybe a new rm? Beshogur (talk) 14:40, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  I was mulling 2018 Afrin offensive as an alternative based on the discussion above. That would also be an improvement on the codename, even if it still somewhat euphemistically lets Turkey of the hook over the whole invasion thing. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:49, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  Why do we need the year if there no second Afrin offensive? Also see this if you're not convinced for the common name. Beshogur (talk) 14:56, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  I mentioned why in my initial response. It's about recognisability, not just for readers familiar with the topic, but for laymen, and per established guidelines, notably WP:NCWWW and MOS:CODENAME. It also avoids the abstract, incoherent and inherently POV language of most codenames – here "olive branch", as if it was some sort of peace mission, not a military offensive. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:09, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  Yea, I can live with Afrin offensive, at least we know where it is then. Selfstudier (talk) 15:01, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose, see WP:COMMONNAME Sr. Blud (talk) 16:59, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Support. The naming of "Olive Branch" was intended to mislead the public about the nature of the operation. Perhaps the suggested title describes better the essence of the events, although it may significantly increase the scope of the page. And if it does increase the scope (I am not sufficiently familiar with this), than creating an additional wider page on the general subject of Turkish military operations in Syria in 2024-2025 (something along the lines of 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria) might be in order. My very best wishes (talk) 19:23, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose. Operation Olive Branch is the commonly recognizable term used. If found consensus the article could start with, Operation Olive Branch (Turkish: Zeytin Dalı Harekâtı) was a codename for an invasion... Onikaburgers (talk) 16:47, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

• oppose Operation Olive Branch is WP:COMMONNAME. —usernamekiran (talk) 07:19, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
• Support descriptive title including year, such as 2018 Turkish invasion of northwest Syria or 2018 Afrin offensive. (No particular opinion on the "what" and "where" at this time.) Including "when" is ordinary, as described in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events), and solves concerns about vagueness. Contrary to opinions above, there is no single common name. At least in English-language sources cited in the article, most either do not mention "Operation Olive Branch" at all, or don't primarily use the term. Adumbrativus (talk) 07:46, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is completely false. "Operation Olive Branch" gets over 1.000 hits on English-language Google Scholar, and is used by VOA, Foreign Policy, Carnegie, the Atlantic Council, Reuters, Middle East Monitor, and Syria:direct just to name some English language-news sites. Applodion (talk) 12:49, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

[2] False statement. Beshogur (talk) 13:14, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Support. Using the name of the operation instead of a generic name with the date and location of the invasion does not seem to match other naming conventions. Turkish Invasion of Afrin or Turkish Invasion of Northwestern Syria makes a lot more sense. People who want to learn about the invasion would search those terms, not the specific operation name that they wouldn't know. Lavipao (talk) 06:49, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose The occupation is already mentioned under Turkish occupation of northern Syria and this operation is widely referred to "Operation Olive Branch" by many different reputable sources. It's like changing D-Day to "The Allied invasion of Western France" A compromise could be however to add a subscript under the title where it refers to something along the lines of "Part of the Turkish occupation of Northern Syria" with a link to the wiki page.

TedKekmeister (talk) 22:20, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Merge proposal

There is no need for Afrin offensive (January–March 2018). There is one Afrin offensive which makes (January–March 2018) useless. It's basically the same thing with Operation Olive Branch. Beshogur (talk) 15:26, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

FYI redirect removed by FPSTurkey (talk · contribs). Beshogur (talk) 15:31, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Might be better the other way around, merge this article into the other and rename it (back to) Afrin offensive. Also depends the ongoing RM above. Selfstudier (talk) 16:06, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Why exactly? Not even the common name. See results above + "Operation Olive Branch" 1070 results (google scholar). Beshogur (talk) 16:28, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

A later redirect here Precisely because there is already an article by that name and I already said in the RM above that title supplied by one side of a conflict is not really NPOV. Let's say the other side called it Invasion of the Pigs, we wouldn't use that name either.

I haven't looked up the talk history, I assume there was some sort of discussion about the title back when and that's how we ended up with the fork. Selfstudier (talk) 16:38, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I already redirected here. 90% of the stuff is copy paste from here. You can check yourself. Beshogur (talk) 18:31, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

It looks like Operation Olive Branch is the Turkish Government's preferred term, while it is also refered to as Afrin offensive otherwise? correct me if i'm wrong. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:46, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes it's the name by the Turkish government, but Operation Olive Branch is the WP:COMMONNAME in this case. It refers to the same thing. Please compare this revision before reverting back. It's copy paste stuff from here. Beshogur (talk) 16:07, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

I am not all that familiar with these particular conflicts but if we were talking IP conflict, nowadays there would be a lot of resistance to the use of an official name from one of the sides (most often, editors want to use the operation name assigned by the IDF, no way). So that's my starting point really, and even if the official name is common, if there is a recognizable alternative description, why not use that? I would argue Afrin (something) is more recognizable to more readers than a generic olive branch. The article even calls it that at Operation_Olive_Branch#Afrin_offensive. Selfstudier (talk) 16:19, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Afrin offensive? Yeah maybe.[3] but (January–March 2018) and another article doesn't make sense. It's a duplicate and there is one Afrin offensive. Beshogur (talk) 16:40, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Undid merge, there is significant material on that other page, would like consensus first before mass blanking. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:41, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Insurgency phase

@Applodion: The article is about the operation. Also what's the source for 9 August 2019? Why did it end that day? It doesn't make sense. Beshogur (talk) 14:26, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

@Beshogur: I originally restored the old version as the referenced sources stated the Operation Olive Branch was still ongoing, battling the local SDF insurgents after 2018. That was also the reasoning for the inclusion of a "guerrilla phase" in the article per previous discussions. Conversely, it has become clear that the name "Operation Olive Branch" has basically become a term to describe the Turkish occupation of Afrin, with some sources still treating the operation as ongoing as of 2024. The 2019 end-date for the guerrilla campaign was probably added by some anon who took a lack of news as an end date and just edited it, with no one really noticing (sadly, this happens from time to time). However, the "main" operation clearly ended in 2018, and any later operations are better covered in SDF insurgency in northern Syria. Thus, I self-reverted my edit. Applodion (talk) 14:33, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for understanding. Beshogur (talk) 16:14, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Not to be confused

Operation Olive Branches

מבצע ענפי זית

rescue team sent from Israel to Turkey to help people trapped under ruined constructions during February 2023, after the earthquake

הראש (talk) 19:07, 4 February 2025 (UTC)