Turkey summons US ambassador over Syrian Kurdish forces spat

“The front in northern Aleppo is in flames”, he said via Skype. Turkey has tightened its borders against IS infiltration and has stepped up arrests of IS suspects. Russian has now created its own virtual “no-fly-zone” in Syria since 30 September 2015.

In addition, Erdogan criticized the USA for its support of Syrian Kurdish fighters, considered terrorists by Turkey. He accused the group of trying to take Arab villages near Afrin.

Major powers were beginning a new round of Syria peace talks on Thursday focussing on calls for a ceasefire and access for humanitarian aid. In an interview with the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, Turkish head of state addressed Putin with the question: “What are you doing in Syria?”.

He spoke Wednesday, ahead of a Security Council meeting on Syria. For example, in August the YPG looked set to seize the final 97 km. of IS-held territory along the Syrian side of the Turkish border, the key remaining part of the terrorist group’s supply chain through Turkey.

At a news conference Wednesday with his Dutch counterpart in The Hague, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called the U.N. Security Council and the global community “two-faced” for demanding that Turkey open its borders while not moving “a finger to solve the Syrian crisis” or to stop the Russian bombings. Russian Federation said its air force had carried out more than 500 combat missions in Syria over the past week. At the time, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation declared that the allies “strongly protest these violations of Turkish sovereign airspace”.

Still, Turkey is an important ally in the Western coalition’s fight against IS in Syria and Iraq.

Dozens of PKK members, soldiers and police officers and civilians have been killed in the clashes in the mainly Kurdish town of Cizre which is situated near the Syrian and Iraqi borders. The Turkish head of state added the United Nations should not be calling on Turkey to take in more refugees from Syria, but should be urging other states to receive refugees from Turkey.

Turkey is reeling from recent terror attacks blamed on IS militants.

“Islamic State has military bases in Turkey, and is using it as a corridor”.

Furthermore, even though in July Turkey finally gave in to intense American pressure and began to confront IS, Turkey still assigns far great weight to its fight against the Kurds. A month ago, General Joseph Dunsford was quoted by the Turkish press during a visit to Ankara as saying that the USA shared Turkish concerns over the PYD. Russian Federation has conducted a drill in the Eastern Mediterranean to test one of its anti-submarine destroyers’ surface-to-air missile defense systems as well as the AK-100 universal caliber automatic cannon and the AK-630 small caliber anti-aircraft artillery.