Ankara has demanded that the Syrian Kurdish forces, known as the YPG, pull back east of the Euphrates River.
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Hurriyet said that the Turkish armed forces had been given an order to “strike immediately” should the YPG be seen to make any move towards Jarabulus.
Ankara has said it will act in the operation against the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia who it accuses of seeking to carve out an autonomous region in northern Syria.
A still from a video released by the Turkish-backed Syrian rebel group Firqat al-Hamzah shows fighters marching past a Turkish Otokar Cobra armoured vehicle during the operation to capture Jarabulus on 24 August.
Turkey on Saturday sent six more tanks into Syria as pro-Ankara forces pressed on with de-mining work in a town captured from Islamic State (IS) jihadists this week, an AFP correspondent said. Turkish tanks head to the Syrian border, in Karkamis, Turkey, Saturday, Aug. 27, 2016. “We are now planning not to confront them, but if we have to confront them, we will”, Osman said.
In September 2011 Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had previously described Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a friend, says: “The Syrian people do not believe Assad, and I do not either”.
Erdogan, however, recently met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow, and called for a “clean slate” in the bilateral ties.
In November 2012 Turkey recognises the Council as “the legitimate representative of the Syrian people”.
The suicide attack at a police headquarters in a province bordering Syria and Iraq came two days after Turkey launched its first major military incursion into Syria, an operation meant to drive Islamic State out of the border area and stop Kurdish militias from seizing ground in their wake.
Osman, speaking to Reuters from Jarablus, said the priority was now to advance some 70 km (40 miles) westward to Marea, a town where rebels have long had a frontline with IS.
Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member and part of the US -led coalition against Islamic State, has seen a series of deadly bombings this year blamed on the radical Islamists. The operation, he said, could take weeks or months to complete.
Several rebel groups are taking part in the operation, fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army. “There’s been a movement as appropriate back east of the Euphrates, and we have every reason to believe that that will continue”, he said.
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The rebel factions have also advanced southward from Jarablus toward the city of Manbij, which was captured earlier this month from Islamic State by the USA -backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance including Kurdish fighters. He didn’t say where to but added “no one can take as a pretext the YPG presence west of the River Euphrates in Manbij to attack it”.
