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Turkey asks US to drop support for Syrian Kurds

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Turkey-backed rebels have captured 21 towns and villages near Jarablus from the Syria Democratic Forces. He said President Tayyip Erdogan was concerned by increasing attacks near the Syrian city of Aleppo and was making diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire there.

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Operations would continue until all threats, including from the YPG, were removed, he said.

On Sunday, Ankara said it killed 25 Kurdish fighters, including from the SDF during airstrikes near Jarablus.

On the other hand, Turkey says that the military campaign it had launched in Syria last week aims to achieve two different goals.

America’s special envoy for the fight against ISIS, Brett McGurk, tweeted that the clashes are “unacceptable” and called on all sides to “stand down”.

Turkish tanks rolled across the border last week to help Syrian rebels seize the town of Jarablus from the Islamic State group, a move that was also aimed at deterring further advances by Kurdish-led forces. Erdogan will hold discussions on the issue during the G-20 summit in China, he added.

In comments made to the state-run Anadolu news agency on Wednesday, EU Minister Omer Celik says, “Turkey is a sovereign state, it is a legitimate state”.

Salih Muslim directed accusations against Iran, Turkey and Syrians on uniting despite their conflicts and rifts for the sole goal of Kurds, amid a suspicious U.S.

The Jarablus Military Council, which is backed by the SFD, said a truce had been reached with Turkey “via the United states and the worldwide coalition”.

President Barack Obama’s envoy to the coalition against the Islamic State group, Brett McGurk, tweeted a Pentagon statement dubbing the Turkish-Kurdish clashes “unacceptable and a source of deep concern”.

The operations have left Turkey exposed to reprisal attacks by Islamic State and Kurdish militants, both blamed for a string of bombings over the past year. The “Islamic State” (IS, ISIL, ISIS or Daesh), the YPG and the PYD are the most active terrorist groups in Syria. It accuses the YPG of seeking to take territory where there has not traditionally been a strong Kurdish ethnic contingent.

The YPG, a powerful Syrian Kurdish militia in the SDF that Washington sees as a reliable ally against jihadists in the Syrian conflict, have dismissed the Turkish allegation and say any of its forces west of the Euphrates have long since left.

Turkey has not agreed any truce with Kurdish militias in Syria, spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told a news conference.

However, Turkey has insisted Kurdish militia, which it regards as terrorists, retreat east across the Euphrates river.

Turkey has not spelled out if it wants to have a “buffer zone” in the region where it is fighting in north Syria.

Ankara claimed its raids had killed 25 Kurdish “terrorists” and that the army was doing everything to avoid civilian casualties.

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The Jarablus Military Council is backed by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance of Arab and Kurdish forces which this month drove IS jihadists out of Manbij, a town near the border with Turkey, with United States air support.

France criticizes Turkish military intervention in Syria