The U.S. allies FSA and YPG have found themselves on opposite sides of an ongoing Turkish military operation near the border town of Jarablus in northern Syria’s Aleppo province since the rebels captured the town from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) last week during an offensive backed by the Obama administration.
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“The Republic of Turkey is an independent, lawful state”, said Celik, answering journalists’ questions at Anadolu Agency’s Editors’ Desk.
The US has always been trying to avert an escalation in violence between Turkish-backed FSA forces operating in and around the Syrian border town of Jarablus and YPG fighters in the same region.
Votel said that non-Kurdish units of the SDF, including Arab and Turkmen fighters, had taken over responsibility for securing Manbij. Since then, Syrian rebels have been pushing westward, chasing the Islamic State, as well as southward into areas controlled by forces aligned with the USA -backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. The Turkish military said it was also shifting operations westwards, which would take it into territory still under ISIL control.
The Turkish military pushed Islamic State militants out of Jarablus last week and is now fighting to contain US -backed Kurdish forces, which Ankara views as a threat. Turkey has said Syria was informed in advance of the operation by Russian Federation. The White House said a continued Turkish push would complicate the fight against ISIL.
Ankara fears the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria would bolster the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) across the border in southeastern Turkey.
Just days after a USA spokesman for the anti-ISIS coalition celebrated the Kurdish-led capture of Manbij on Twitter, calling the YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces a “stalwart ally”, those same forces were being attacked by Turkey.
US Central Command spokesman, Colonel John Thomas, said on Tuesday that the Turkish and Kurdish-led forces had reached a “loose agreement” to stop fighting each other.
The Britain-based Syrian Observer for Human Rights monitoring group, which relies on contacts inside Syria, said a tense calm had prevailed in the area Tuesday evening.
Last week, Turkey sent its troops and warplanes to back Syrian rebels in their advance on Jarablus, a town near the Turkish border and the next IS-stronghold after Manbij.
But Turkey is unlikely to hold off for long as it intends to stop Kurdish forces which it views as terrorists from seizing territory and is insisting that they, retreat east across the Euphrates river.
Turkey’s presidential spokesman has called on the U.S.to “revise” its policy of supporting Kurdish forces battling Turkish troops in Syria after Ankara’s incursion last week into the war-torn state.
“Although the fight against terrorism.is a principle for all peace-seeking governments, it can not and must not justify military operations on another country’s territory without coordination with its central government”, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said.
The YPG is also a key component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which groups diverse factions battling the jihadists.
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The fighting comes when the U.S. and Russian Federation say they’re working toward an end to Syria’s more than five and half years of civil war. The Observatory said it was not clear who was behind the shelling.
