Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s strongest ally in the civil war, Russia, said they were “deeply concerned” by the Turkish advance.
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For its part, Turkey’s government has knowingly allowed assistance to filter to ISIS across its southern border.
An operation in Raqqa would entail an expansion of cooperation on Syria between Turkey and the United States, NATO allies whose relations have been strained over Syria policy.
Ali said her family lived with Turkish people and the state’s help. ISIS well understands Turkey’s agenda and is using it to its advantage to recover from its recent losses.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement Wednesday expressing concern over Turkey’s offensive into Syria. Syrian sources reported Wednesday that Turkish warplanes struck targets in the ISIS-held town of Al-Bab, which is 180 kilometers northeast on the highway leading to Raqqa.
The countries also sharply disagree over Syria’s Kurdish militias, which Turkey sees as its main enemy in Syria, and the USA sees as its most effective ground partner against the Islamic State, the group also known as Isis. Erdogan said his United States counterpart spoke of joint action against Daesh (Isis) in Syria when they met at the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China.
Turkey can’t launch a military operation in Syria’s Raqqa on its own, Anadolu Agency quoted Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu as saying September 8.
“We have agreed with them about where each party will be, geographically, in such a way that they can conduct their operations against [Islamic State] and not run into each other”, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in a recent interview with CNN.
On the fifth day of the operation, a Turkish soldier was killed in clashes with Kurdish fighters in northern Syria.
Turkey has said it cleared militants from a 90-km (55-mile) stretch of Syrian territory and has pushed south.
Erdogan s comments came two weeks after Turkey launched an ambitious operation inside Syria, sending tanks and special forces to back up Syrian opposition fighters and remove IS jihadists and Kurdish militia from its frontier.
It’d be an acknowledgement by Washington of Turkey’s continuing tactical interest in Syria.
“We do not think a no-fly zone would resolve the fundamental issues on the ground because there continues to be fighting on the ground”, White House national security adviser Ben Rhodes said this week.
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The broad-based High Negotiations Committee (HNC) proposed a six-month negotiating phase between the regime and the opposition.
