It is also worth mentioning here that Turkey accuses YPG of having close ties with PKK fighters – another Kurdish group which claimed several terrorist attacks in Turkey.
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Washington said the clashes were “unacceptable” and urged an immediate de-escalation.
Ankara has said it killed 25 Kurdish “terrorists” in strikes on YPG positions on Sunday – meaning the two US-backed partner forces were fighting each other. Turkish leaders have vowed to drive both IS and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, away from the border. U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter will travel next week to Europe where he says he will address the situation with his Turkish counterpart, Fikri Isik.
The Turkish leader issued a message on Monday saying Ankara was determined to take all steps necessary both inside Turkey and overseas to protect Turkish citizens. It accuses the YPG of seeking to take territory where there has not traditionally been a strong Kurdish ethnic contingent.
NTV television said that Turkish artillery had shelled 15 targets in northern Syria on Monday.
Turkish troops and Turkey-backed militia have pressed further into northern Syria, despite strong criticism from the US.
U.S. President Barrack Obama and Turkey President Tayyip Erdogan, two world leader with opposing views on Syrian war, will meet at the G20 Summit in China next month.
A 400-square-kilometre area has been cleared since the operation began on August 24, it added.
” Daesh is an acronym for IS”.
Votel, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, said he thinks that the Iraqi security forces “are on track” to recapture the key city of Mosul from ISIS by the end of 2016.
Ankara fears advances by Kurdish fighters as Islamic State is pushed out are aimed at establishing a Kurdish enclave along Syria’s northern border, a move which could embolden a three-decade-long Kurdish insurgency on Turkish soil.
A Turkish soldier was killed by a Kurdish rocket strike on Saturday, becoming the first such fatality in Turkey’s ground offensive. “We will fight all terrorist groups, including (the Kurdish-led fighters).in all of northeast Aleppo”, said Capt. Abdel-Salam Abdel-Razzak, a spokesman for the Nour el-Din el-Zinki group.
The United States has called on the Syrian Kurds to pull back to the east side of the Euphrates, in accordance with US assurances given to the Turks, and Cook said this pullback has “largely occurred”.
This has “largely occurred”, he added.
The meeting is scheduled for Sunday, Sept.
“The YPG elements of (the SDF) will withdraw, and is withdrawing, east of the Euphrates”, Carter said.
Votel said that non-Kurdish units of the SDF, including Arab and Turkmen fighters, had taken over responsibility for securing Manbij.
Hundreds of thousands of people are either in besieged or hard to reach areas throughout Syria.
The fact is that each new wave of refugees from Syria to Turkey creates new problems for Ankara.
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Shervan Derwish, a spokesman for the local military council, which is aligned with the Kurds, denied reports that the YPG was sending reinforcements to the town to repel any attacks from Turkey or its proxies.
