Turkish soldiers stand in a Turkish army tank driving back to Turkey from the Syrian-Turkish border town of Jarabulus on Friday in the Turkish-Syrian border town of Karkamis.
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“We will never allow the formation of an artificial state in the north of Syria”, Mr Yildirim said in a speech in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, where he announced an investment programme to rebuild parts of the largely Kurdish region that have been destroyed by security operations.
The army said Turkey’s rebel allies had taken six more villages, located in Islamic State-held areas, adding to dozens of settlements now under the control of Turkish-backed forces.
“The formal returns have begun today”, said a spokesman at the governor’s office for the southern Turkish province of Gaziantep, which lies across the border from Jarablus. Conflicting casualty figures are common in the Syria war.
Instead, US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov are set to meet again on Monday in Hangzhou, China, where G20 leaders are gathered.
The offensive has linked those troops back up with what they still have in and around Azaz, which before the Turkish push was effectively their only territory.
Areas controlled by Assad’s forces have had several bombings and other attacks claimed by both IS and al-Qaida-linked militant groups.
The border town of Jarablus, which Syrian rebels and Turkish forces recently recaptured from the terror group, is a critical location for supplies, money and fighters coming in and out of ISIS-held areas. Turkey hosts an estimated 3 million Syrian refugees, the highest number in the world.
Mohammed Abu Jaafar, head of the local forensic department in rebel-held Aleppo, said Wednesday 29-year old Mohammed Afifa died overnight of heart failure and acute respiratory distress caused by inhalation of toxic gas.
But they secured only a small strip of land leading into the city – a tenuous link to fighters, arms and supplies as the government brought in reinforcements.
After the government laid siege on Aleppo for the first time in July, the United Nations said that almost 300,000 residents were trapped in rebel-held neighborhoods, making it the largest besieged area in war-torn Syria. The city has been contested since the summer of 2012.
“The armed forces in cooperation with their allies took full control of the military academy zone south of Aleppo and are clearing the remaining terrorists from the area”, state TV said.
State news agency SANA quoted an unnamed military official as saying that troops have captured the Armament Academy and are “continuing their advance in the area to impose nearly a total siege on the gunmen in Aleppo”.
The deal would focus on delivery of humanitarian supplies to Aleppo, where recent advances by both sides have cut supplies, power and water to almost 2 million people in government- and rebel-held areas.
Some 20 tanks and a number of armored vehicles rolled into the northern Syrian town of al-Rai, in what the state-run Anadolu Agency described as a “new phase” in Operation Euphrates Shield launched on August 24, in which the Islamic State (IS) was driven from the Syrian border town of Jarablus.
Yildirim on September 4 defended his country’s intervention in Syria, pointing to their long shared border.
Turkish forces have targeted IS inside Syria, but have also attacked Kurdish fighters in the same region. US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin also met on the sidelines of the summit, where they agreed to continue talks.
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Some Kurds have criticized Turkey for its role in Syria.
