Beirut: The Kurdish YPG militia said the Turkish army shelled its positions in a village on the outskirts of the Daesh-held border town of Jarablus in northern Syria and urged Ankara to halt attacks on its forces.
Several tank rounds from across the border hit its positions and the Turkish army was targeting them instead of the “terrorists”, a YPG statement said.
“It is an aggression that should be stopped,” it said.
The statement also said a YPG vehicle came under heavy fire from the Turkish military in a village east of the devastated border city of Kobani.
The Turkish military said it was not targeting Syrian Kurds, a Turkish government official said on Monday.
“The ongoing military operation seeks to neutralise imminent threats to Turkey’s national security and continues to target Daesh in Syria and the PKK in Iraq,” the official told AFP. He said the Syrian Kurdish “PYD, along with others, remains outside the scope of the current military effort.”
Turkey has dramatically escalated its role in the US-led coalition against Daesh, which has seized much of Syria’s north and east, since a suspected Daesh suicide bomber killed 32 people in a town close to the Syrian border.
But it has also struck Kurdish targets.
Turkish fighter jets and ground forces hit Daesh militants in Syria and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) camps in Iraq on Saturday, in a campaign Ankara said would help create a “safe zone” across swathes of northern Syria.
The attacks against the PKK will likely deal a blow to the fragile peace process with the Kurds that was started in late 2012.
Meanwhile, Turkey said it will not send ground troops into neighbouring Syria where it has been bombing Daesh positions, a campaign that could “change the balance” in the region, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was quoted as saying on Monday.
“We will not send ground forces,” Davutoglu told a group of Turkish newspaper editors according to the Hurriyet daily.
“We do not want to see Daesh on our border,” Davutoglu said, the Hurriyet daily quoted him as saying.
Turkey has launched a two-pronged “anti-terror” cross-border offensive against Daesh terrorists and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants after a wave of violence in the country, pounding their positions with air strikes and artillery.
The Turkish military on Sunday launched new strikes on Kurdish militants in northern Iraq as Ankara called a meeting of the NATO military alliance over its campaign against the PKK separatists and Daesh terrorists.
Davutoglu said Turkish strikes against Daesh and PKK militants in Iraq and Syria would “change the balance” in the region.
Turkey has given a green-light to the United States on the use of a key air base near Syria for bombings against Daesh targets.
The landmark deal to use Incirlik air base in southern Turkey comes after months of tough negotiations between Turkish and US officials.
Davutoglu declined to provide details of the agreement but said the concerns of Ankara, which had been pressing for a no-fly zone, were addressed “to a certain extent.”
“Air cover is important, the air protection for the Free Syrian Army and other moderate elements fighting Daesh,” said Davutoglu.
“If we will not send ground forces - and that we will not do - then certain elements that cooperate with us on the ground must be protected.”
