Turkey on Wednesday rejected claims by the USA, which said Turkish forces had reached an agreement for a temporary pause with the Kurdish militia in northern Syria.
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Turkey views the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, YPG, as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an outlawed militant group, which has waged a war on Ankara for the last three decades to establish an autonomous Kurdistan.
A Turkish soldier on an armoured personnel carrier waves as they drive from the border back to their base in Karkamis on the Turkish-Syrian border in the southeastern Gaziantep province, Turkey, August 27, 2016.
Kobani is about 35 km (22 miles) east of the Syrian border town of Jarablus, which Turkey-backed rebels seized last week from Islamic State in an incursion which has also seen clashes with Syrian Kurdish militia fighters.
After helping Syrian Arab rebels take Jarabulus from IS on the intervention’s very first day, Turkey began strikes against the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a YPG-dominated coalition that has been leading the fight against IS.
But a spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would continue to attack USA -backed Kurdish militias inside Syria.
In an interview with Reuters on Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus called on the United States to put more pressure on the YPG to return east of the Euphrates river, a move that Turkey hopes would keep the Kurdish militia in check.
On Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed USA claims that the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had retreated to the northeast, as demanded.
And Moslem added a rather explosive statement: “We are in possession of documents showing (Turkey’s) aid to ISIS”.
The United States said it hit Islamic State targets in the region overnight, although it did not say where. “We don’t expect any change”. US officials have since called on both sides to stand down, fearing that the conflict could undermine efforts to battle IS.
Turkish forces have moved closer towards Manbij and ordered all remain Kurdish fighters to leave or face the consequences.
After driving Daesh out of the border town of Jarabulus, Ankara quickly turned its sights on the US-backed Kurdish militia, who control territory to the south, pounding them with deadly shelling and air strikes to the dismay of Washington.
But Islamic State (Isis) attacked Turkish lines west of the city on Tuesday night, wounding three Turkish troops in a rocket barrage.
On Saturday the tanks crossed the frontier and entered the Syrian rebel-controlled town of al-Rai to support the new offensive, a rebel spokesman and monitors said.
Celik told the Anadolu news agency that “to suggest (Turkey) is on a par with a terrorist organization and suggest there are talks between them, that a deal has been reached between them, this is unacceptable”. They are basically saying that as far as they are concerned there is no truce.
A Kurdish official in Syria says Turkish forces have opened fire and lobbed tear gas across the border to break up a protest by Kobani locals against a barrier wall being built by Turkey, killing one teenager.
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“The US welcomes the overnight calm between the Turkish military and other counter-ISIL forces in Syria”, Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, said on Tuesday.
