He also said Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan, as well as Britain and France may also take part.
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Diplomats believe that cutting off Daesh’s access to Turkey is key to stemming the flow of foreign fighters and supplies into Syria. The U.S. has already begun air strikes from Turkish bases in advance of the campaign.
Ankara has long argued that lasting peace in Syria can only be achieved with Assad’s departure.
The air campaign will also provide cover for what the U.S. says are moderate Syrian rebels.
Alarmed by the growing Kurdish influence in northern Syria, Turkey offered in June to fully cooperate with the coalition to ensure that a 100-kilometer stretch of territory that is controlled by ISIL and separates two lands held by Kurds does not add up to a 21,000-square-kilometer Kurdish-controlled territory nearly twice the size of Lebanon.
Both Ankara and Washington had given this message directly to the PYD, he said.
An Ankara-based analyst has said that smoother cooperation between Ankara and Washington during the US-led campaign against ISIL could inevitably bring the US and Turkish militaries closer and result in Turkish generals favoring “US systems and solutions”, US-based defense weekly Defense News reported on Sunday.
Brig. Gen. Kevin Killea, chief of staff of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR), told reporters Friday that the location of Incirlik was “fantastic and strategic” for coalition forces to hit Daesh targets in Syria and Iraq. “The groups to fill in the area remain to be vetted jointly by Turkey and the US”.
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“But the situation in Syria, or in the region including Yemen and Iraq, is totally different to the nuclear deal“.
