“Raqa is the most important centre of Daesh”, Erdogan told Turkish journalists on board his plane as he returned from China, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
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A spokesman at the governor’s office for Gaziantep province, which lies across the border from Jarablus, also confirmed the civilians’ departure.
Turkey and the rebels also clashed for several days with Kurdish-led forces, who have been the main USA ally inside Syria in the war against Daesh.
Turkey and its rebel allies now control a 90-km stretch of land on the Syrian side of the border and are pushing south.
“The attack on Afrin confirms that Turkey’s intervention in Syria is mainly aimed at fighting the Kurds”.
Turkish-backed forces clashed with YPG fighters in the initial stages of the two-week old Turkish incursion into Syria, but have since shifted their focus onto territory held by Islamic State and captured a string of villages.
Mr Erdogan said the notion of combined actions floated against the militants when they met in China at the G20 meeting.
Turkey’s military said Sunday that its warplanes killed 20 Islamic State group fighters in an attack on targets in northern Syria, while Turkey’s president renewed a pledge to destroy the group.
The chief of Afrin Council released a statement on yesterday’s incident, claiming that “not a single bullet was shot (by the YPG) against the Turkish army on the border to this date”.
The Tuesday update says the United Nations has sent an “inter-agency convoy with life-saving supplies to Hama” and was evaluating the humanitarian situation.
“We stated that would not be a problem from our perspective”. “Anyone who wants to go back to Jarablus, will be given any support they need from us”.
Ousting IS from the city would be a turning point in the conflict and mark a huge blow to the jihadists.
Erdogan said the original residents of Jarabulus and al-Rai have already begun to return from Turkey.
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It blocked Kurdish militias from taking the same area to unite their two semi-autonomous enclaves along the border with Turkey, which is fighting its own internal war with Kurdish militias, which it sees as inseparable from those in Syria. The “Islamic State” (IS, ISIL, ISIS or Daesh), the YPG and the PYD are the most active terrorist groups in Syria.
