Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Ankara is open to the idea of conducting a joint military operation with the USA to free the Islamic State group’s stronghold of Raqqa. US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to clinch a deal while meeting in China on Monday.
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“It is not just us but other countries that must train and equip local forces, that must contribute and give direction”, Cavusoglu said. “We said this wouldn’t be an issue from our standpoint”.
“Turkey has supported us in every way until now, and has now saved our homeland”, said Fatima Mahmud, a mother who was among the group, told the Turkish newspaper Milliyet.
He said more would return gradually.
Erdogan’s comments on Raqqa were published in Turkish media.
Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime were pushed out of Raqa, which lies on the Euphrates River, in 2013, making it the first provincial capital in Syria to fall out of government control.
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.
Ankara sees Kurdish militias in Syria as a threat, given it’s been fighting a more than 30-year on-off insurgency within Turkey by the outlawed PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party).
Turkish forces and the Ankara-backed rebels are pressing on with the operation inside Syria, which is also targeting a Kurdish militia Ankara regards as a terrorist group.
Turkey will have to strike a balance between the conflicting goals of Russian Federation and the United States if it is to achieve its ambition of a “safe zone” in northern Syria and build on an incursion which gave it control of a thin strip of the border.
Turkey, meanwhile, has been sending more military hardware south. Finally, it makes him look like a fighter against the Islamic State, but at the same time, he reserves the opportunity to control other radical groups and suppress the Kurdish national liberation movement.
The YPG says its troops have long since withdrawn from areas being targeted by Turkish-backed forces. He says the two sides can never be allies, though both are fighting Isis.
Erdogan said Turkey would have “no problem” with the possibility.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suggested that Turkey could take part in a future operation to liberate the Syrian city of Raqqa from Islamic State group militants.
