Turkish air force jets launched strikes between 09:30 and 10:55 GMT against targets of the “separatist terrorist organisation” in Gara in northern Iraq, Anadolu news agency said, referring to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
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According to the message, the efforts are made to protect civilians.
“Syria calls on Security Council’s member states to condemn those cowardly crimes and to exert all pressures and take all effective measures to guarantee the recovering of Turkish regime to its senses and forcing it abandon its support of terrorism or using it as a pretext to interfere in the domestic affairs of Syria”, the Ministry went on to say. Militants from various armed groups are confronting the Syrian government troops. Washington’s biggest fear is that the animosities could divert resources and attention from fighting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
Turkey’s president has said his country will press ahead with its military operation in Syria, despite the USA expressing “deep concern”.
Turkish forces pressed on with a two-pronged operation inside Syria against Islamic State (IS) jihadists and the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), shelling over a dozen targets. “Our operations will continue until terror organizations such as Daesh, the PKK and its Syrian arm, the YPG, cease to be threats for our citizens”.
After Biden’s warning, Kurdish officials seemed to had acceded to Turkish demands and said they withdrew the YPG forces from Manbij. Turkey denied there were any civilian deaths, saying 25 Kurdish militants were killed.
Syria’s government has condemned the Turkish incursion but has stayed out of the conflict.
The United States has called on the Syrian Kurds to pull back to the east side of the Euphrates, in accordance with USA assurances given to the Turks, and Cook said this pullback has “largely occurred”.
Now the rebels have retaken many villages south of Jarablus, the group backed by Turkey is advancing towards the city of Manbij a YPG stronghold in northern Syria.
The International Red Cross says 19 trucks carrying aid have entered a hard-to-reach area north of the central Syrian city of Homs.
The ICRC says the trucks are bringing to Dar al-Kabira aid for 33,500 people, including food parcels, toiletries and medical items, as well as materials to fix the existing boreholes and the water network.
On Monday, the Jarabulus Military Council, a group created by the SDF, said its fighters would withdraw to areas south of the al-Sajour River – not east of the Euphrates, as Turkey wants.
Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, said on Monday the YPG “needs to cross east of the Euphrates as soon as possible”.
The move is unlikely to be accepted by Turkey, since Ankara wants the rebels to withdraw completely east of the Euphrates.
On Monday, Turkish-backed forces had advanced on Manbij, a city about 30 km (20 miles) south of Turkey’s border captured this month by the SDF with US help.
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Earlier this month, USA officials had praised the YPG-dominated “Syrian Democratic Forces” for their liberation of the IS-held town of Manbij on the western side of the Euphrates. The Local Coordination Committees, an activist collective, said the rebels captured seven more villages since late Sunday.
