Erdogan had demanded that the Kurds, linked to a political group accused of committing acts of terrorism inside Turkey, move back across the river and away from his nation’s western border with Syria. A two-year truce collapsed in 2015 followed by a brutal military campaign by the Turkish army and police in its southeast region.
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Turkey has suffered shock waves from the conflict raging in its southern neighbour, including frequent bomb attacks by Islamic State.
The Observatory said the SDF-allied Jarablus Military Council fighters had withdrawn from the villages of al-Amarna and Ayn al-Bayda as the rebels backed by Turkish tanks advanced into them. Turkey says the Kurds must withdraw to the east of the nearby Euphrates River. A Kurdish-affiliated group said their forces were the target and called the attack an “unprecedented and risky escalation”.
Turkish tanks and opposition fighters drive the IS out of the key Syrian border town of Jarabulus.
The Observatory said at least 20 civilians were killed and 50 wounded in Turkish artillery fire and air strikes on the village of Jeb el-Kussa early on Sunday.
According to Turkey’s NTV television channel, Turkish authorities notified Russian Federation about the beginning of their own operation in Syria. The dramatic escalation was also a reflection of Ankara’s growing concern over increasing Kurdish clout and ambition in Syria and at home.
Russia, a staunch ally of Assad’s regime, has been backing government forces with air strikes on rebel-held areas. The talks were initiated at the Turkish side’s request and focused on the broad military and humanitarian situation in Syria, especially in the war-torn city of Aleppo.
Turkey has troops stationed in Bashiqa in northern Iraq, and it was not clear if his reference to Jarablus means he intends to base his troops there. They are now pushing their way south. It said SDF-allied militia damaged three Turkish tanks there.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the bombing killed at least 20 civilians and four Kurdish-led fighters in Beir Koussa, a village about nine miles (15 kilometers) south of Jarablus, and left another 15 dead in a village to the west.
“We call on all the national revolutionary forces in Syria and to its north to face this invasion and to intervene immediately”.
It vowed to stand its ground.
Turkey’s state news agency, citing military sources, said the Turkish Military Joint Special Task Forces and coalition airplanes targeted an ammunition depot and a barrack and outpost used as command centers by “terror groups” south of Jarablus Saturday morning. Turkey considers the PYD and its People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia to be terror organisations.
The Turkish government wants to stop Kurdish forces gaining control of an unbroken swathe of Syrian territory on Turkey’s frontier, which it fears could embolden the Kurdish militant group PKK, which has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey.
Meanwhile, the United Nations special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, appealed to the opposition to approve plans to deliver aid to rebel-held eastern Aleppo and government-held Aleppo through a government-controlled route north of Aleppo during a 48-hour humanitarian pause.
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In Syria’s northwest, fighting continued to rage between Syrian government forces and rebels in the battered city of Aleppo, in spite of tentative plans for a 48-hour ceasefire.
