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.
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The Turkish military also said on Thursday that YPG forces fired on a Turkish border post on Wednesday and they returned fire.
Turkey launched a military incursion into northern Syria on 24 August initially to free the town of Jarablus from IS control.
It is also to prevent the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) from establishing a continuous corridor along Turkey’s southern border.
The United States sees the Syrian Kurdish YPG as a useful ally in the fight against the jihadists.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011 when the regime of Bashar al-Assad cracked down on pro-democracy protests.
Erdogan said the original residents of Jarabulus and al-Rai have already begun to return from Turkey.
Ankara considers the PYD, which is the political wing of the YPG in Syria as a prolongation of the PKK, classified by Turkey as a terrorist organization. The initiative, he added, came from the United States.
“A no-fly zone would necessarily only be contained to one specific area, and we have problems and violence across the country”, noting that Washington and Ankara had been discussing the issue for a long time.
Ankara has said the YPG must be made to withdraw to the eastern banks of the Euphrates river or it will be a legitimate target.
“The most risky scenario for Turkey involves a war with the Kurds”.
“If we want to cleanse Syria and Iraq of Daesh, it was important that we mount operations both in Mosul and in Raqqa”.
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As the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) took control of Manbij, a strategically important town controlled by ISIS until 12 August 2016, the apparent conflict between SDF and the US-lead worldwide coalition backing them deterred any constructive movement on the ground.
