Turkey and the United States have been working on plans to provide air cover for Syrian rebels and sweep ISIL from the land along the Turkish border.
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Piloted American warplanes Wednesday launched airstrikes from Turkey against Islamic State fighters in Syria, the first American manned bombing raids against the group from the only Islamic member of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Ankara considers the Kurds to be a threat to Turkey’s integrity, labeling them as terrorists.
“Nusra has begun a withdrawal… we have reasons to be optimistic”, the Turkish official said, adding that the train-equip programme would continue and stopping it was “off the agenda”.
A Foreign Ministry official in Ankara said Wednesday that Turkey has not carried out its own airstrikes against the Islamic State recently because the U.S. asked it to wait so that the two countries can coordinate efforts.
“Until these details are finalized, the U.S. has requested Turkey not to undertake independent counter-ISIL strikes in Syria, to ensure safe air operations for the coalition in dense airspace”. Its use would enable the U.S.-led coalition to conduct better surveillance over Syria and act quicker on intelligence than when it was limited to launching flights from places like Iraq, Jordan and the Gulf states.
The United States already started flying armed drones from Incirlik earlier in August.
Toner said he could not address the official’s remarks as he had not seen them.
It said the decision was being taken to avoid cooperating with a US-Turkish plan to create an IS-free zone in northern Aleppo province, along the Turkish border. “Strikes were conducted”, Pentagon spokeswoman Commander Elissa Smith said, according to Times of Israel.
Thought it opposes Islamic State, the Nusra Front last month attacked rebels trained as part of a U.S.-led programme to bolster insurgents viewed as moderate enough to fight the ultra-hardline group.
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant warriors killed no less than 37 opponent agitators in an overnight assault in Syria’s Aleppo region and 20 contenders stay missing, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday.
A senior Syrian opposition official told CNN in July that in order for Turkey to support a “safe zone”, the nation would have to cooperate with multiple Syrian opposition groups.
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Meanwhile, Turkish planes are unilaterally hitting PKK bases near the border with Turkey.
