Turkey, which is fighting a Kurdish insurgency at home, has openly said the operation dubbed “Euphrates Shield” has a dual goal of driving away Islamic State and preventing Kurdish forces extending their areas of control along the Turkish border. After that, they advanced on areas controlled by Kurdish-aligned militias which have U.S. support in battling jihadists.
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The move by Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally, has left Washington alarmed as Ankara’s operation not only aims to push back IS (Daesh) but also to prevent Kurdish fighters from acquiring more areas along the Turkish border.
“We did support them”, Votel said of the Turkish forces crossing into Syria, but “we had to withdraw support for that” when it became clear to the USA that the Turkish offensive had aims beyond clearing fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria from the border.
While it lasted long enough for the USA to get a statement out, however, Turkish officials were quick to downplay the lack of fighting as not by design, denying claims by the Kurdish forces that a ceasefire was in place, while Turkish-backed rebels insisted that the “pause” in attacking the Kurds was to be a brief one.
The comments by Ibrahim Kalin published on Tuesday by Sabah the pro-government Daily Sabah came a day after the US urged Turkish troops and Kurdish forces in northern Syria to halt their fighting…
Ankara sees the YPG as a “terrorist” offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party and fears an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria would bolster the PKK in southeast Turkey.
“It is hard to see how this does not get messy”, the European Council on Foreign Relations wrote in a paper, referring to the situation in northern Syria.
Secretary Carter has urged Turkey that rather than combating the SDF, it should “stay focused on fighting ISIS”.
Turkish soldiers sit on a tank driving to Syria from the Turkish Syrian border city of Karkamis in the southern region of Gaziantep, Aug. 27, 2016.
Thomas called the reported agreement between the two groups “encouraging”. “We appreciate Turkey’s continuing cooperation and look forward to our future partnership in the counter-ISIL fight”, Votel said, using another acronym for ISIL.
Turkish forces have been attacking Kurdish fighters since crossing the border last week.
Turkish operations will continue “until terror organizations such as Daesh [ISIS], the PKK and its Syrian arm, the YPG, cease to be threats for our citizens”, added Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
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But Turkish military sources denied there was any such agreement, while a Turkish-backed Syrian rebel commander characterized it only as a “pause” and said that military operations would soon resume. A Turkish soldier was killed Saturday by a Kurdish rocket attack, the first such fatality in Turkey’s ground offensive.
