Turkey wants to 'cleanse' strip of territory on Syrian border

World Wednesday 31/August/2016 18:54 PM
By: Times News Service
Turkey wants to 'cleanse' strip of territory on Syrian border

Jarablus (Syria): Turkey wants to clear IS group from a 90km (56 mile) stretch of territory on the Syrian side of its border, an official said on Wednesday, a week after launching an incursion that has strained ties with the United States.
Operation "Euphrates Shield", in which Turkish troops and tanks entered Syria in support of rebels for the first time, began on August 24 with the swift capture of Jarablus, a town a few km (miles) inside Syria that was held by IS.
Turkish-backed rebels patrolled the town on motorbikes on Wednesday as children played in dusty alleys.
The bulk of Turkish-backed forces have since moved further south into territory held by militias loyal to the Kurdish-aligned Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition supported by Washington in its bid to defeat the militants.
Turkish clashes with SDF loyalists have alarmed the United States, which has described the Turkish action as "unacceptable" because it hindered the battle against IS.
But Turkey, which is fighting a Kurdish insurgency at home, says that, while it remains intent on clearing militants from its border region, it also wants to prevent Kurdish militias from seizing territory in their wake.
Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said the goal was to drive IS from a 90km strip of land along the border with Turkey, which has been buffeted by a spate of bombings blamed on the group that have killed scores of people.
"Starting from Jarablus, the cleansing of this region is our priority," Kalin told a news briefing.
"We have already cleansed 400 square km successfully."
Turkey has long said it wants a "buffer zone" in the area, although it has not used the term during this incursion. As well as driving out the ultra-hardline militants, it also wants to prevent Kurdish forces taking territory that will let them join up cantons they control in northeast and northwest Syria.
Turkey frets that seizing such a broad swathe of territory could embolden the Kurdish PKK insurgents on Turkish soil.
US officials on Tuesday welcomed what appeared to be a pause in fighting between Turkish forces and rival militias, after days when the border area reverberated with Turkish warplanes roaring overhead into Syria and artillery pounded Syrian sites, saying it was hitting Kurdish fighters.
On Wednesday only the occasional thud of explosions in the distance was audible along the Turkish frontier.
But Ankara has denied statements from Kurdish fighters in Syria that a temporary truce had been agreed, saying it would not make any pact with the Kurdish YPG militia, a powerful force in the SDF coalition, when it considers it a terrorist body.
"The Turkish Republic is a sovereign state, a legitimate state. It cannot be equated with a terrorist organisation," EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik told state-run Anadolu news agency, adding this meant there could be no "agreement between the two".
Turkey has demanded that the YPG cross the Euphrates river into a Kurdish-controlled canton in Syria's northeast. US officials have threatened to withdraw backing for the YPG if it did not meet that demand, but have said that the Kurdish group has mostly done so.
Turkey's EU affairs minister said some Kurdish fighters were still on the western side and called that "unacceptable."
Eager to avoid more clashes between Turkey and US-backed Syrian fighters, the Pentagon said the US-led coalition against IS was establishing communications channels to better coordinate in a "crowded battlespace" in Syria.
As well as battling IS in Syria, Turkey has been rounding up suspected militants at home. Interior Minister Efkan Ala said the authorities had arrested 865 people since the start of 2016, more than half of them foreigners, preventing them crossing through Turkey's long border with Syria and Iraq.