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| Turkish troops enter Syria in major operation against Isis | Turkish troops enter Syria in major operation against Isis |
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| Turkish troops have entered Syria in the opening gambit of a cross-border campaign to “cleanse” Islamic State militants from the town of Jarablus, the terror group’s last major hub on the 500 mile (800km) border. | |
| Turkey said its tanks had crossed the border into Syria on Wednesday morning after airstrikes and shelling that began shortly after midnight. It is the first time Ankara’s ground forces have ventured into Syria, with the exception of a brief operation early last year to rescue the tomb of an ancestor of the founder of the Ottoman empire. | |
| Turkey said it had hit 81 targets in northern Syria with F-16 warplanes as part of the operation, called Euphrates Shield, and had also shelled Isis positions in response to artillery strikes from within Syrian territory. | |
| “At 4am this morning, operations started in the north of Syria against terror groups which constantly threaten our country,” Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said in a speech in Ankara, adding that the operation would target both Isis and Kurdish militants. | |
| The government in Ankara said the operation was an act of self-defence, in response to Isis shelling of Turkish border towns and suicide bombings and attacks targeting Turkish nationals. The bombing of a wedding in Gaziantep over the weekend killed more than 50 people, many of them children, and Isis-linked militants have carried out attacks in Ankara and Istanbul, including one at Atatürk airport. | |
| It also billed it as an operation that would stem the flow of foreign fighters, who make up a significant contingent of Isis, to Syria, and the flight of refugees from the war-torn country. | |
| “The operation comes in response to terrorist attacks on Turkish soil and artillery fire by Daesh militants in Syria on targets inside Turkey,” the state-run Anadolu news agency said. “The operation is in line with the country’s rights to self-defence borne out of international treaties and a mandate given to the armed forces by the Turkish parliament.” | “The operation comes in response to terrorist attacks on Turkish soil and artillery fire by Daesh militants in Syria on targets inside Turkey,” the state-run Anadolu news agency said. “The operation is in line with the country’s rights to self-defence borne out of international treaties and a mandate given to the armed forces by the Turkish parliament.” |
| The interior minister, Efkan Ala, said the response was Turkey’s “most legitimate right” and that his country could not be a “mere spectator” amid the intensifying threat by Isis. | |
| The airstrikes were the first by Turkey, a Nato member, in Syria since November, when its fighter jets shot down a Russian warplane that had strayed into Turkish airspace, leading to a collapse of relations with Moscow that lasted until a rapprochement in July. Last week, the Turkish prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, said his country would take a more “active” role in the war in Syria, which has driven more than 2 million refugees into Turkey. | |
| The US vice-president, Joe Biden, was due to arrive in Ankara on Wednesday morning, hours after the launch of the operation. Relations between the two allies have been strained since an attempted coup last month that aimed to overthrow Erdoğan, who accuses a US-based cleric, Fethullah Gülen, of masterminding the plot and is seek ing his extradition. | |
| Relations have also deteriorated over American backing of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which has expanded its sphere of influence in northern Syria as it conquered vast tracks of land from Isis with the backing of American air power. Ankara considers the YPG as the Syrian arm of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK), which is fighting an insurgency against the government and is a designated terrorist group, and considers Kurdish expansionism on its border a threat to national security. | |
| Erdoğan said the operation launched on Wednesday was in fact aimed at Isis and the YPG. | |
| If rebel forces backed by Turkey take control of Jarablus, they would limit the westward expansion of the Kurdish autonomous zone, which Ankara also says poses a threat to Syria’s territorial integrity. | If rebel forces backed by Turkey take control of Jarablus, they would limit the westward expansion of the Kurdish autonomous zone, which Ankara also says poses a threat to Syria’s territorial integrity. |
| Turkey’s latest campaign is a development that underscores both the complexity and the stakes involved in Syria’s war, which has drawn in the region’s powers, laid much of the country to waste and forced a reshifting of longstanding alliances. While defeating Isis has long been the paramount American obsession in Syria, Turkey sees the departure of its president, Bashar al-Assad, as a necessary condition for peace talks, and rejects the idea of a Kurdish statelet on its borders. | Turkey’s latest campaign is a development that underscores both the complexity and the stakes involved in Syria’s war, which has drawn in the region’s powers, laid much of the country to waste and forced a reshifting of longstanding alliances. While defeating Isis has long been the paramount American obsession in Syria, Turkey sees the departure of its president, Bashar al-Assad, as a necessary condition for peace talks, and rejects the idea of a Kurdish statelet on its borders. |