Turkish warplanes carried out deadly strikes on US-backed militias in northern Syria, including Syrian Kurdish fighters, a monitor said Thursday, action that is likely to raise tensions between the NATO allies.
Turkish forces and Syrian rebels expelled the Islamic State group from the last areas of the Syrian-Turkish border under their control on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Turkey will never allow the formation of an "artificial state" in northern Syria, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Sunday, referring to the U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters whose advance Ankara is now aiming to stop.
Turkish warplanes and artillery struck targets held by the Kurdish YPG militia in north Syria on Sunday, security sources said, as Turkey pressed on with a cross-border campaign launched last week with its Syrian rebel allies.
Turkey's military intervention in Syria is a "blatant aggression in Syrian internal affairs", and results from an agreement between it, Iran and Syria's government, Redur Xelil, the spokesman for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Wednesday.
The United States has made it clear to Syrian Kurdish forces that they must return to east of the Euphrates river after seizing control of the Syrian town of Manbij to retain US support, Vice President Joe Biden said on Wednesday.
Regime forces and Kurdish fighters agreed on Tuesday to a truce in the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakeh after a week of clashes, a Kurdish official and Syrian state media said.
Turkey will take a more active role in addressing the conflict in Syria in the next six months to prevent the war-torn country being divided along ethnic lines, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Saturday.
At least five people were killed and scores injured on Wednesday in a bomb attack on a local administrative office in the Kurdish-held Syrian town of Tel Abyad, near the Turkish border, witnesses said.
The Syrian government said on Wednesday that German Special Forces were present, alongside French and American military personnel, in northern Syria, an accusation denied by Germany.
More than 130 Islamic State group fighters have been killed in a US-backed offensive on the key jihadist-held city of Manbij in northern Syria, a monitoring group said Thursday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the United States' support of Kurdish fighters in Syria after AFP pictures revealed US commandos wearing the insignia of a militia branded a terror group by Ankara.
