The Turkish officials were quoting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who relayed the news in a telephone conversation with his Turkish counterpart. Ankara states that the objectives of its military action are to fight Daesh and the Kurdish militias. Turkey is also aiming to contain the expansion by Syria’s Kurds, who have used the fight against IS and the chaos of Syria’s civil war to seize almost the entire stretch of territory along Syria’s northern border with Turkey.
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Osman, 49, said both Turkey and the US -led coalition against Islamic State, of which Ankara is a part, were keen to provide air support for the operation. “Our forces will remain there and there will be no retreat”, Xelil said, according to Kurdish media outlet Firat News.
“ISIL (ISIS) poses a threat to all of us”, Cook said, adding that sharing ISIS as a common enemy is a major reason why all parties were initially supportive of the Jarablus operation. Military sources said 100 IS militants had been killed in the offensive.
Vice President Joe Biden, who arrived in Ankara for talks with Erdogan on Wednesday, said the YPG would lose USA support if it did not withdraw to the east of the Euphrates – a red line that Turkey has repeatedly insisted upon.
Only hours after Turkey’s “Operation Euphrates Shield” commenced, US Vice President Joe Biden landed in Ankara to patch up the deteriorating Turkish-US relations. US -backed Kurdish-led fighters seized the town of Manbij from IS militants earlier this month, raising concerns they would advance toward Jarablus along the border with Turkey.
Syrian Kurds and Damascus accused Ankara of violating the territorial integrity of the Arab republic.
YPG spokesman Redur Xelil condemned Turkey’s “hostile approach”.
The operation to liberate Jarablus from IS fighters came less than two weeks after the USA -backed and Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces liberated the town of Manbij, another IS stronghold in the vicinity.
“It’s our right to remain there until” the Ankara-backed Syrian opposition forces take control of the area, Isik said.
They are supporting a ground offensive by hundreds of Syrian rebels who on Wednesday marched into Jarabulus and a neighbouring village after meeting little resistance. “We are waiting for it and following it”, he told the private NTV television station.
Turkish army tanks are stationed near the Syrian border in Karkamis, Turkey.
A Reuters witness saw at least nine tanks enter on Thursday, and 10 more were waiting outside a military outpost on the Turkish side.
Militants from various armed groups are confronting the Syrian government troops.
Turkey’s intervention serves more than one goal, said Aaron Stein of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Centre for the Middle East.
The council’s spokesman, Sherfan Darwish, earlier said the Syrian Kurdish YPG contingent that helped liberate Manbij earlier this month numbered about 500 fighters.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said that the Turkish army on Monday shelled their positions with heavy artillery.
The BBC’s Mark Lowen, who is on the Turkish-Syrian border, says that getting the U.S. to demand the SDF withdraw was a major diplomatic victory for Turkey, which has long felt that the Americans have prioritised collaboration with the Kurds in Syria over supporting their North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally. “We are anxious due to the possibility of a further deterioration of the situation in the conflict zone, including in view of possible concomitant civilian casualties and the worsening ethnic conflict between Kurds and Arabs, ” the Foreign Ministry’s message reads.
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“Regardless of what happens in Jarablus and elsewhere, Kurdish forces would continue defending our territories whether from IS, opposition groups or Assad military”, said Alan Shammo, a Kurdish official in northern Syria.
