Meanwhile, ten more tanks were sent into Syria from the Karkamış town of Gaziantep, where the tanks are located on the second day of the Euphrates Shield operation.
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“This operation will continue until we are sure that no threat to Turkey remains”.
Earlier, it was reported that Turkish tanks entered Syria.
Jan Egeland, who heads up humanitarian aid in the office of the U.N. Syria envoy, said the U.N. now awaits assurances from two rebel groups and written authorization from President Bashar Assad’s government before any aid convoys can go through to Aleppo amid an upsurge in fighting that has left the city almost surrounded by Russian-backed Syrian troops.
On Thursday morning, American officials confirmed that Syrian Kurdish leadership had begun to withdraw east.
Next to the pistachio tree fields, plumes of smoke billow over the hills and villages surrounding the Syrian border town of Jarabulus.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu agency, reporting from Jarablus, said the Syrian opposition forces were working to secure the town to allow its resident’s to return, including defusing explosives inside the town or on roads leading to it. Estimates put the town’s population at 25,000.
Yet, the size and scope of the Turkish incursion was demonstrative enough of Turkey’s intention: To undertake whatever is required for its national security and interests.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yidirim on Friday denounced as a “bare-faced lie” suggestions in Western media that Ankara’s military operation in Syria was singling out Kurdish people rather than jihadists.
“The question is whether Turkey is really focused on ISIS, or whether it’s real target will be the YPG (People’s Protection Units)”, Rubin, who is now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), told Trend.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), of which the Kurdish YPG militia is a critical member, has retreated east across the Euphrates river at the behest of Ankara and Washington.
The fight against the Islamic State is just one of many facets to Syria’s civil war, which has left hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced. “We are waiting for it and following it”, he told the private NTV television station.
Russia’s U.N. ambassador said Thursday that there doesn’t have to be a confrontation with the United States over a report that blames the Syrian government and Islamic State militants for carrying out chemical attacks.
His comments came after a vehicle bomb on Friday in the largely Kurdish southeast that killed at least 11 people.
“I think the Turks are prepared to stay in the effort to take out ISIL as long as it takes”, he added.
The Turkish operation was approved by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who arrived on a visit to Ankara, while the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed deep concern. After they are cleared, hopefully good days are ahead of us.
The withdrawal came after Turkey launched an operation on Wednesday to oust ISIS from the Syrian border town of Jarabulus, as well as prevent an operation on the same town by Syrian Kurdish forces. They are bombing us, and our citizens are dying, our citizens are scared.
A spokesman for the USA -led anti-IS coalition, Col. JD Dorrian, said some members of the force that seized control of Manbij went east of the river, but some remained to secure and clear land mines. The town was seized by Turkish-backed rebels Wednesday while Kurdish-backed forces advanced to its south, briefly clashing with the advancing forces. Vice President Joe Biden, visiting Ankara, had threatened to pull USA support if the Kurdish fighters stayed in areas Turkey says pose a threat to its national security.
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But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said Kurdish-backed forces opposed by Ankara had gained up to 8 km of ground northwards, apparently seeking to pre-empt advances by the rebels.
