“It cannot be equated with a terrorist organization”, EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik told state-run Anadolu news agency, adding this meant there could be no “agreement between the two”.
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The Islamic State group says its spokesman has been “martyred” in northern Syria.
Bloody clashes have already broken out between US-backed Kurdish fighters and Turkish-backed forces on the ground in northern Syria, and Washington has been left scrambling for a clear response.
In its Syria offensive, Turkish forces and their rebel allies have taken a string of villages in areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and advanced towards Manbij, a city the SDF seized from Islamic State this month in a USA -backed campaign.
After capturing Jarablus, the FSA reached areas in the southern countryside of that city, where they had several confrontations with the SDF fighters, coupled by Turkish shelling of the positions of the Kurdish-backed group.
While Turkey considers the PYD to be the Syrian offshoot of the extremist PKK organization, the USA sees the group as its ally in the fight against ISIL.
Kalin said Turkey will keep attacking the Syrian Kurdish militia unless they fully withdraw to the east of the Euphrates River. The mainly Sunni Arab rebels consider this area theirs; and the Kurds view it as land they have fought hard for.
However, by giving rebels air and artillery strikes – and letting rebel units transit through Turkey to blindside ISIL forces in Jarablus – Ankara is allowing the rebels to make advances that would have been much more hard, if not impossible, without their help.
The group also claimed to have carried out a suicide auto bombing against Turkish-backed rebels in the same area and said it had killed “dozens” of Turkish soldiers and Turkish-backed rebels.
Turkey has been fighting a Kurdish insurgency in its south-east for decades and fears Kurdish gains in northern Syria will fuel Kurdish separatism at home.
On Tuesday, US Central Command spokesman Colonel John Thomas said Turkish and Kurdish forces in the area had come to a “loose agreement” to stop fighting, according to Agence France-Presse.
Washington has been alarmed by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria, launched nearly a week ago.
“We managed to make everyone angry at us: The Syrian kurds, the larger Syrian opposition, as well as the Turks”, said Ford, who is now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.
“In the end, it is hard to imagine that the different actors can simultaneously remain in alignment on the Kurdish question while maintaining a brutal fight elsewhere”, the ECFR said.
Turkish clashes with SDF loyalists have alarmed the United States, which has described the Turkish action as “unacceptable” because it hindered the battle against Islamic State.
Ibrahim Kalin said it was unacceptable that European Union countries had not sent high-level representatives to Turkey after the coup attempt, which the presidency says was planned by supporters of Fethullah Gulen, a powerful US-based Muslim cleric.
“Turkey acted within the U.N. Charter’s article 51, which is about self-defense, and moved into Jarabulus”, Ozertem told VOA’s Turkish service.
“The Turkish offensive is likely to continue to focus on the YPG and [that military unit of the Syrian opposition] is not likely to back off, either”, Tol said.
Turkey will not agree a truce with Kurdish militias in Syria as it considers them terrorists, officials said on Wednesday, after strains emerged with the United States over clashes between Turkish forces and the USA -backed Syrian fighters.
While thankful for the Turkish support, there is a feeling among rebel ranks that Turkey has limited its goals to securing its border and will not be willing to get more deeply involved in the war in Syria.
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On the 7th day of Turkey’s Euphrates Shield Operation the Free Syrian Army, Turkey-backed Islamist proxies and the Turkish military captured Zavgar village from ISIS.
