Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim says his nation’s forces and Syrian rebels have expelled the Islamic State (IS) group from the last areas of the Syrian-Turkish border under its control.
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The advance took place little more than a week after Turkey launched the Syrian incursion, called Euphrates Shield, deploying tanks and air power to support the rebels, who swept into the border town of Jarablus.
Turkish forces backed by Syrian rebels say they have driven Daesh militants out of territory along the Syrian border with Turkey.
“The incursion, launched from the Turkish province of Kilis and supported by Syrian rebels, marks a new phase in Operation Euphrates Shield, a campaign to clear the Sunni terror group from the border region, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported, citing military officials”. The wall is being erected from Karkamis, a Turkish town across the border from Jarablus, to Suruc, which lies across from the Syrian town of Kobane.
Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, revealed that the Turkish leader had met separately a second time with Russian and USA counterparts Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama before leaving the G20 meeting in Hangzhou.
With Turkey’s rapid success in less than two weeks, his position looks stronger with territory in between the two Kurdish “cantons” of Afrin and Kobane now in the hands of Ankara-backed rebels. “We’re glad you’re here, safe, and that we are able to continue to work together”, he added, facing the Turkish leader on a long table. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad wants to fully recapture divided Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war.
Jennifer Cafarella, a Syria expert with the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, said it was too soon to say if the attacks by the IS group were a reaction to its recent defeats along the border.
“Once this goal is achieved, the third target will likely be to push Daesh terrorists further south to al Bab”, the daily noted, using IS’ Arabic name.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in China that “it is our wish that a terror corridor not be formed across our southern border”. On Sunday, intense aerial and artillery attacks helped government forces and their allies drive insurgents out of the Ramousah military complex in Aleppo, according to rebels and a monitoring group.
While Euphrates Shield initially targeted the Islamic State group, most of the focus since has been on checking the advance of US -backed Syrian Kurdish fighters, to the alarm of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally Washington. The country considers YPG an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an insurgent group that it has been battling with for nearly three decades.
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Relations between the U.S. and Turkey have been strained since an attempted coup in Turkey on July 15, with some officials blaming the United States for fomenting the uprising. It added that all roads linking rebel-held eastern Aleppo with opposition areas outside the city “have been cut”.
