The fighting between Turkey’s military and the Kurdish forces has raised concern in the United States that it could detract them from the battle against the Islamic State group and frustrate anti-IS efforts by the US -led coalition.
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Turkey views the Syrian Kurdish fighters as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey and is viewed as a terrorist group by Turkey and the U.S.
In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman told reporters on Wednesday there had been calm in northern Syria in the past 24 hours. “We encourage these moves as a way to prevent further hostilities and loss of life between all counter-ISIL forces operating in the area”. A statement said “terrorists” fired the rocket west of Jarablus, where Turkish troops have been fighting Kurdish-led forces after Turkey’s August 24 incursion into Syria.
One Turkish soldier was killed and three were wounded in fighting Saturday.
JARABLUS, Syria Turkey wants to clear Islamic State from a 90-km (56-mile) stretch of territory on the Syrian side of its border, an official said on Wednesday, a week after it launched an incursion that has strained ties with the United States.
In Paris, Hollande said “multiple, contradictory interventions carry the risk of a general inflammation” of the fighting that has devastated Syria.
Turkey says the group is an arm of Turkey’s outlawed PKK.
Hollande also urged Russian Federation to cooperate with the coalition and said he would invite President Vladimir Putin to France in October, noting Moscow should be “a player in negotiations, not a protagonist in the action”.
“The absolute urgency is a halt to fighting and a return to negotiations”, Hollande said.
Operation “Euphrates Shield”, in which Turkish troops and tanks entered Syria in support of rebels for the first time, began on August 24 with the swift capture of Jarablus, a town a few km (miles) inside Syria that was held by the militant group.
He reiterated Turkish demands that Washington live up to its assurances that the Syrian Kurdish forces would immediately withdraw to the east of the Euphrates.
Ankara has denied statements from Kurdish fighters in Syria that a temporary truce had been agreed, saying it would not make any pact with the Kurdish YPG militia, a powerful force in the SDF coalition, as it considers it a terrorist body.
Turkish troops clashed with the US -backed Kurdish Syrian forces around Jarablus to try to halt their advance and form a contiguous corridor on the border between Turkey and Syria. The Democratic Forces, aided by coalition airstrikes, repelled the attack initially, but Darwish said clashes continued.
Two A-10 planes hit and destroyed two Islamic State targets, the military said in a statement, without elaborating. It said casualties were inflicted but did not give figures.
Turkish-backed rebels patrolled the town on motorbikes on Wednesday as children played in dusty alleys.
Also Wednesday, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said military operations in Syria “will continue until all terrorist elements have been neutralized, until all threats to our borders, our lands and our citizens are completely over”.
His comments were echoed by President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, who said Turkey would continue striking Kurdish militia until they withdrew from the region where Turkish forces are fighting.
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In recent months, the US -led allied Kurdish forces gained control of most of the territory along the Turkey-Syria border, reinforcing the ethnic group’s aspirations for a contiguous autonomous region there.
