The Obama-Erdogan meeting was announced as a series of USA spokesmen criticized the actions of the Turkish military in Syria.
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The fighting pits Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally, against a US-backed proxy that is the most effective ground force battling IS militants in Syria’s five-year-old civil war. Dozens were killed Sunday in a series of bombardments as Turkish artillery and air strikes hit several villages held by Syrian Kurdish forces, including Jeb el-Kussa, where at least 20 died and 50 were wounded.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain, said at least 40 civilians were killed in Turkish shelling and airstrikes on Sunday.
Turkish forces have attacked what they say are Kurdish “terrorists” since crossing the border last week.
At the start of Turkey’s now nearly week-long cross-border offensive, Turkish tanks, artillery and warplanes provided ostensibly moderate Syrian rebels from the Free Syrian Army with the firepower to capture the Syrian frontier town of Jarablus, which was abandoned by ISIL militants with little fight last week.
Just this week it claimed responsibility for assassination attempt on opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and a truck bomb attack near Syrian border that left 11 Turkish police officers dead.
Votel said that non-Kurdish units of the SDF, including Arab and Turkmen fighters, had taken over responsibility for securing Manbij.
They also lost hundreds of fighters in the process.
In an email to The New York Times (NYT), Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said that the U.S.is “closely monitoring” the fight in northern Syria.
Turkish officials responded by insisting that Kurdish forces “immediately” withdraw east of the Euphrates River or face more attacks by Turkish forces.
A statement said “terrorists” fired the rocket on Tuesday west of the border town of Jarablus.
“They were not coordinated with USA forces, and we do not support them”, Cook said. Carter says he intends to discuss the issue next week in Europe with Turkish defense minister Fikri Isik.
The increased tensions between the Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon-backed Syrian rebels and Kurdish forces threaten to take resources and attention away from the campaign against the Islamic State.
“We have called on both sides to not fight with one another, to continue to focus the fight on ISIL …”
After announcing the upcoming Obama-Erdogan meeting, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters at the White House, “Further action against the SDF would complicate efforts to have that united front” against ISIS.
Meanwhile, Iran has voiced its concerns over Turkey’s continued military operations on Syrian soil.
US forces did not take part in either the Turkish airstrikes and artillery shelling of positions south of Jarablus or the firing against Turkish forces in this area, according to the Pentagon.
“The statements of USA officials about the content and the targets of the Euphrates Shield operation. are unacceptable and are not in line with the alliance between the two countries”, a foreign ministry spokesman said, adding that a complaint had been lodged with the US ambassador to Turkey. “I’m sure the US Special Forces who worked with the Kurds over the past two months are feeling very embarrassed, because they feel like they lied through their teeth as they gave encouragement to the Kurds to do the heavy lifting”.
FILE – Turkish troops return from the Syrian border, in Karkamis, Turkey, Aug. 27, 2016.
“If that happens, it means Syria has been divided”, he added, quoted by NTV television.
The situation in northern Syria is yet another complication in the country’s already tangled civil war, and potentially throws a wrench in U.S. plans to defeat the Islamic State group in the region. “Turkey is not an invader”.
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“What we can do and are doing with them is to clarify where the YPG elements of the SDF are and are not”, he said, adding YPG fighters were indeed withdrawing. “The Turkish army must swiftly put an end to its operations in Syria”, said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi (seen below).
