Turkey-backed Syrian rebels would like to see a “safe zone” set up in areas of the border they are capturing from Islamic State, but this would need an agreement between the United States, Turkey and Russian Federation, a rebel commander said on Tuesday.
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Turkey is in favour of joint military action with the U.S. to capture the Syrian city of Raqqa from Daesh, the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
On the fifth day of the operation, a Turkish soldier was killed in clashes with Kurdish fighters in northern Syria.
Mr Erdogan said USA counterpart Barack Obama floated the idea of joint action against the militants when they met at the G20 meeting in China.
Turkey is regarded as instrumental in the fight against ISIS, bordering Syria and acting as a major transit route for rebels and arms heading there.
The two countries also differ on Turkey’s operation in Syria, as along with the Islamic State, Turkey considers YPG, a Syrian Kurdish group, to be a terrorist group.
On August 24 morning, the Turkish Air Force with the support of the coalition aircraft launched an operation to liberate the city of Jarabulus from the IS militants in northern Syria, near Aleppo city.
Ankara wants worldwide support to take control of a rectangle of territory stretching about 40 km into Syria, creating a buffer between two Kurdish-held cantons to the east and west and against Islamic State to the south.
Russiacriticised for the first time the Turkish military operation in Syria, joined by militias opposing the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
“Our 91km border has been completely secured”, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said during a televised speech on Sunday. Turkey’s first declared casualty during the intervention came in that fighting.
In July 2015, a Turkish soldier was killed after IS militants shot across the border into Turkey.
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The villages are located around 12 kilometers (7 miles) to the southeast of the town of Al-Rai, known as Cobanbey in Turkish. “If we take a backward step terror groups like Daesh, PKK, PYD and YPG will settle there”, Erdogan said, according to Hurriyet. “But this area is still very thin and vulnerable to attacks from the other side”, said a senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity so as to discuss the strategy more freely.
