“We call on Ankara to refrain from any steps which can further destabilise the situation in Syria”, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
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Wounded people were taken to hospitals in Turkey’s southern province of Gaziantep, which lies across the border from Jarablus, same hospital sources said.
Turkish forces and the Ankara-backed rebels are pressing on with the operation inside Syria, which is also targeting a Kurdish militia Ankara regards as a terrorist group.
“Our soldiers should get together and whatever needs to be done can be done”, Erdogan said, adding that Turkey and the US have been working in harmony so far in the operation against the Islamic State group.
But Turkey’s tactics have drawn criticism from its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally the United States and also from Russian Federation, with which it recently patched up ties.
Hundreds of civilians have begun returning to the border town of Jarabulus in northern Syria, two weeks after pro-Ankara fighters recaptured it from Islamic State (IS) jihadists.
Syrian refugees who fled Daesh-held areas along the Turkish border will be able to go back to their homes after the terrorist organization is cleared in those areas, Defense Minister Fikri Işık said on Saturday.
Speaking to Reuters after a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter in London, Isik said YPG fighters should not be at the heart of any bid to seize Raqqa.
“The actions that Turkey is now taking along its border with Syria, with U.S. support, is having the important effect of isolating Raqqa”, the official said.
Turkey plunged into Syria with ground forces for the first time.
And there’s more good news where that came from: Erdogan told U.S. President Barack Obama that he’s willing to, together with the U.S., launch an operation against ISIS’s Syrian capital of Raqqa.
He said more would return gradually.
The offensive continues, and Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli said Turkish forces might push deeper into Syria after securing a stretch of land along the border.
“Nobody’s going to go in there and occupy those cities except the people who already live there”.
Turkey launched a military incursion into northern Syria on 24 August initially to free the town of Jarablus from IS control.
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There have been no evident clashes with the Kurdish-led forces for the last seven days. Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Turkish-Kurdish rebel group fighting for autonomy in Turkey since the 1980s.
