ISTANBUL (AP) – Turkey on Wednesday dismissed reports of a cease-fire deal with Kurdish rebels in northern Syria, and vowed to continue its week-old military incursion into the neighboring country until all “terror entities are eliminated.”
In comments made to the state-run Anadolu news agency, Turkey’s European Union affairs Minister Omer Celik said that “Turkey is a sovereign state … a legitimate state” and that “to suggest it is on a par with a terrorist organization and suggest there are talks between them, that a deal has been reached between them, this is unacceptable.”
Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish forces an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a domestic group that Ankara has declared a terrorist organization.
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. Turkey’s incursion helped the rebels take Jarablus from the Islamic State group, but clashes subsequently broke out in the area between Turkish and Kurdish forces – both U.S.-allies.
Turkish troops clashed with the U.S.-backed Kurdish Syrian forces around Jarablus to try to halt their advance and form a contiguous corridor on the border between Turkey and Syria.