Dubbed Euphrates Shield, Turkey’s operation, which involves tanks, fighter jets and special forces, is targeting both ISIL but also Syrian Kurdish forces that have been key to driving ISIL fighters out of other parts of the Syrian-Turkish border.
Advertisement
Turkish Army soldiers walking by tanks near Turkish Syrian border of Karkamis.
Turkish media report Erdogan told journalists Wednesday traveling home with him from the G-20 meeting the issue was brought up by U.S. President Barack Obama during their talks on the sideline of the summit in China. “We wouldn’t consider anything before that as formal passage”, a spokesman at the governor’s office for Gaziantep province, which lies across the border from Jarabulus, said.
“I said: “Our soldiers should come together and discuss, then what is necessary will be done”, Mr Erdogan added.
Turkey launched an offensive in northern Syria on August 24 to clear Islamic State from its border and to prevent territorial gains by the Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara believes has links to Kurdish insurgents fighting on its soil. He also pointed to Mosul, IS’s stronghold in Iraq, as a major centre where action needs to be taken.
“All terrorist organisations have been repulsed and they have gone”. Turkey plunged into Syria with ground forces for the first time. There continues to be no evidence in the US.
Heavy Turkish shelling across the border into Syria killed six US-backed Kurdish fighters and wounded several civilians, a monitoring group said on Thursday.
Two anti-Syrian government militants were also killed and another two injured in the attack.
The ministry called Ankara to refrain from any steps that might lead to increased destabilization of the situation in Syria.
Huseyin Bagci, a professor of global relations at Ankara’s Middle East Technical University, told Middle East Eye that Ankara’s recent moves reflect a policy change that has once again made it indispensible to both the USA and Russian Federation.
Advertisement
“But at this stage we have to show our presence in the region”. More would be allowed to return but only gradually, he added. Ankara sees the YPG as an extension of the PKK which is fighting an insurgency on Turkish soil.
