The White House said it opposes Turkey’s push into areas in northern Syria controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, an opposition group the Obama administration supports, as it stands to erode the united front against Islamic State.
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Since then, Turkish forces have mainly pushed into areas controlled by forces aligned to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition that encompasses the Kurdish YPG militia and which has been backed by Washington to fight the jihadists.
The meeting Sunday will take place before the G20 summit in China, Obama’s deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters at the White House. He also said the USA has communicated to the SDF that they should not engage in military activity against Turkish forces.
It added that “the drama played by the Turkish regime through entering Jarabulus city, where it didn’t shoot fire a single bullet at ISIS, rather it let ISIS join the Turkish army and enter Jarabulus is an evidence on the cooperation between the Turkish regime and ISIS”.
This spring, 250 USA special operations forces embedded with the Kurdish YPG to help them lead a ground assault against ISIS in Syria. The targets were “destroyed”, Anadolu added.
“We do understand that they (Turkey and Kurdish fighters) have historical differences with one another but American interests are quite clear”, Carter said.
Rhodes said that while the US supported Turkey’s efforts to clear IS fighters from Jarablus and secure its border, it would oppose Turkish efforts to move south and engage in activities against the SDF.
The two will talk about the coup and Turkey’s recent assault against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Syria.
Turkey, which is battling a Kurdish insurgency on its soil, has said its campaign has a dual goal of “cleansing” the region of Islamic State and stopping Kurdish forces filling the void and extending the area they control near Turkey’s border.
“We’ve called on both sides to not fight with one another, to continue to focus the fight on ISIL”, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a Pentagon news conference, using an acronym for Islamic State.
Turkey on Wednesday sent tanks across the border to help Syrian rebels retake the key Islamic State-held town of Jarablus and to contain the expansion of Syria’s Kurds in an area bordering Turkey.
Ankara said it killed 25 Kurdish “terrorists” in strikes on YPG positions on Sunday, a day after a Turkish soldier died in a rocket attack.
Turkey and the groups it supported are waging a war in northern Syria after purging DAESH from Jarablus.
Smoke rises after the Free Syrian Army backed by Turkish armed forces detonate DAESH mines in Jarabulus, Syria, August 26, 2016.
The move is not likely to be accepted by Turkey, since Ankara wants the rebels to withdraw east of the Euphrates.
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“After Turkey carried out a massacre in south of Jarabulus and threatened us to target civilian villages again, we chose to withdraw”, the council said.
