TASS- Any ground operation in Syria may affect the Syrian National Dialogue Congress, due in Sochi on January 29-30, Iran�s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari told reporters in a comment on Turkey�s operation in Syria�s Afrin.

"Any ground operation either positively or negatively may affect the Congress," he said. "We hope the guarantor countries (Russia, Turkey and Iran - TASS) will undertake measures to avoid it (affect - TASS)."

Earlier on Saturday, Turkey�s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the republic's Armed Forces had "actively" begun an operation in Syria's Afrin. "An anti-terrorist operation in Afrin has actively begun," the Anadolu agency quoted the president as saying. "Manbij to follow," Erdogan added.

In recent months, Erdogan repeatedly spoke of a possibility to hold a military operation against groups, which are branches of the Kurdistan Workers� Party, which Turkey had outlawed as a terrorist organization, in the Syrian district of Afrin.

On Friday, Turkey�s defense authority confirmed the military operation in Afrin "de facto began with artillery fire.".