“Thank God that the operations have been successful so far”, he said, adding that he is counting down the days to leave for Syria.
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“Raqqa is an important center for Daesh”, Erdoğan said, using an Arabic acronym for the jihadist group. A photographer for the AFP news agency reported seeing hundreds of civilians queuing at the border gate.
Turkey is home to some 2.7 million refugees from the conflict in Syria but only around 10 per cent live in refugee camps, with the rest living in towns and cities across the country, mainly in the south-east. Ankara has pressed on carving out territory with its Syrian rebel allies despite a lack of worldwide support.
Turkey has been an active player in the fight against the twisted terror network, rolling its tanks into Syria last month to push ISIS fighters back from the border.
“We need to show we are present in the region”, said Erdogan. Damascus denounced the intervention as a breach of its sovereignty. Erdogan said he told Obama “it would not be a problem for us”, media quoted him as saying. “We have always said that if we do not support local forces on the ground, if there is no land operation, it will not be possible to eliminate or even stop Daesh exclusively from the air”, he said.
IS rapidly infiltrated the city, which is strategically located near the Turkish border, and declared a caliphate in 2014.
The Russian Foreign Ministry announced Wednesday that its Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov would meet in Geneva on Thursday and Friday with his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State John Kerry.
The Syrian Kurdish leadership vows to defend their de facto state in north east Syria to the end, but is fearful of a growing understanding between the Syrian and Turkish governments in opposition to Kurdish separatism at a time when USA support for the Kurds is faltering.
Erdogan said he had agreed with Obama on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Hangzhou, China to do “what is necessary” to drive ISIS out of Raqqa.
“It will not be a massive 30,000, 40,000 soldiers entering into Syria”, said Turkish political columnist Semih Idiz of the Al Monitor website.
On 7 September, UK foreign minister Boris Johnson and the High Negotiations Committee of the Syrian Opposition (HNC) and other foreign ministers from across the world meet in London.
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Both countries will hold further talks to hammer out the details of any joint action.
