Turkey considers the YPG to be an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – a group striving for an independent Kurdish state in Turkey – which Ankara has declared a terrorist organisation.
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Turkey’s state-run news agency says three rockets fired from Syria have hit Turkish border town of Kilis, injuring five children, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Turkey will press ahead with its military operations in Syria until the Islamic State group and Kurdish militants no longer pose a security threat.
Turkey’s aim was to drive Islamic State out of a 90 km (56 miles) stretch of Syrian territory running along the border, Kalin said.
Washington has since called on Turkey to refrain from targeting the Kurds, with the State Department spokesman John Kirby saying this was “not helping us degrade and destroy” IS, while Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the reports of clashes were “a source of deep concern”.
However, Cook said at a Pentagon news conference that “We’re not seeing the clashes we saw from this weekend” between the YPG and the Turkish forces that crossed into Syria on August 24 with fighters from the Free Syrian Army, another rebel group that is also supported by the U.S.
While Turkey has allowed the United States to use its Incirlik airbase to carry out air strikes against ISIL, the YPG has proven to be Washington’s most effective ground force in Syria, making gains against the extremist group like no other faction has, with help from American air power, supplies and a small number of special forces troops.
“In the fight against terrorism, any resort to methods that cast a shadow over the political sovereignty and legitimate power of the central government is unacceptable”, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said.
Washington sees the Kurds as a key partner against IS, and US airstrikes have helped a Kurdish-led militia known as the Syria Democratic Forces to seize a large swath of territory from the extremists in recent months.
Clashes between Turkey’s military and Kurdish-backed Syrian forces subsided Tuesday evening after days of fighting between the two had frustrated efforts by a US -led coalition to drive the Islamic State group from northern Syria.
The Britain-based Syrian Observer for Human Rights monitoring group, which relies on contacts inside Syria, said a tense calm had prevailed in the area Tuesday evening.
Five years after the start of Syria’s uprising, the Turkish military directly entered the fray last week, sending troops to occupy the northern Syrian town of Jarablus, previously held by the militant group the Islamic State. It said casualties were inflicted but did not give figures.
Turkey, which is battling a decades-long Kurdish insurgency at home, fears Kurdish-aligned forces will capture areas previously held by Islamic State, giving them control of an unbroken swathe of territory running along the Turkish border.
Prime Minister Binali Yildrim said that “Operation Euphrates Shield” will continue, adding that Kurdish militias – the PKK, PYD and the YPG – “are all the same and hurt Turkey”.
Kalin said the Jarabulus operation had killed a “myth” that the Kurdish militia was the only effective force on the ground in the fight against IS, adding: “The moderate Syrian opposition, if supported, could put up an effective fight”. “They (the Syrian Kurdish fighters) remain a threat for us until they cross east of the Euphrates”. Erdogan will discuss the issue during the G-20 summit in China, he said.
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He reiterated Turkish calls that Washington has to live up to its assurances that the Syrian Kurdish forces withdraw east of the Euphrates and that the pullout immediately takes place.
