Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier accused the United States of making conflicting statements about the Syrian Kurdish militia.
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Inside Aleppo city, heavy clashes continued between Arab insurgent groups and Syrian Kurdish fighters in Kurdish-held neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, the Syrian Observatory said.
“Turkey has been waging an aggressive war against Kurdish civilians, not just Kurdish military personnel – they have been doing it for over 20 years, so there is a lot of long-standing bad blood between the Kurds and the Turks”, former CIA intelligence officer, Larry Johnson, told RT, stressing that the PKK’s involvement in Wednesday’s attack, even if turns out to be true, would not be surprising.
Six soldiers were killed and one wounded on Thursday when a remote-controlled handmade bomb hit their vehicle, the military said. The latest bombing came a little over a month since an attack in Istanbul, which killed 11 German tourists.
So far no organization has claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred near a military complex.
Erdogan said he was saddened by the West’s refusal to call the PYD and YPG terrorists and would explain to Obama by phone how weapons provided by the United States had aided them.
The TV channel reported that Nejar penetrated Turkey from Syria under the guise of a refugee a year ago.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted Friday that Wednesday’s Ankara bomb attack was carried out by the PYD and its armed wing, the YPG.
That’s drawn the ire of Turkish President Erdogan, who said last week the U.S.is responsible for a “sea of blood” in Syria because of its support for the YPG.
Pressing their advantage, Kurdish forces have been taking ground in the fragmented region, most notably the city of Tal Rifaat, as they seek to carve out their own autonomous state.
Erdogan expressed the determination of Turkey to continue the fight against terrorism and those supporting terrorist attacks.
“It must be known that Turkey will not hesitate to use its legitimate right to defend itself always, everywhere and under any circumstances”, he said.
Egeland said the aim is to reach other main besieged areas, or areas surrounded by government or opposition forces, and “hard-to-reach” places within the next week. A fragile peace process with Kurdish rebels collapsed in the summer and renewed fighting has displaced tens of thousands of civilians.
In all, 154,647 war-wounded people and 7,009war-dead were documented in the facilities in 2015, with women and children representing 30 to 40 percent of the victims.
“We will never take a step back in our rightful struggle against all terrorist organisations”, said a statement from his office.
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“We strongly condemn this cowardly attack which appears to have targeted buses carrying Turkish military personnel”.
