Activists say Turkey shelling Kurds in Syria

The Turkish shelling, which began on Saturday, reportedly targeted the Minnigh airbase – recently taken from Islamist rebels by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-Arab militia – and a string of nearby villages.

A Kurdish official confirmed the shelling of the Menagh base, which he said had been captured by the Kurdish-allied Jaysh al-Thuwwar group rather than the YPG.

Turkey’s army troops shelled positions for the Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria, military sources reported on Saturday.

Ahrar ash-Sham, which intensified its attacks on the Syrian army since January, was getting “serious reinforcements from Turkey”, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during a briefing in Moscow on January 21.

Davutoglu said he had also spoken by telephone to US Vice President Joe Biden, telling him the PYD was a “threat” against which “we can take all kind of measures”.

“The Turkish heavy artillery shelling against Syrian territories is a direct Turkish support to the armed terrorist groups and an attempt to lift the morale of those defeated groups”, the ministry said, in condemnation letters sent to the United Nations.

France meanwhile called on Syria and Russian Federation to halt their airstrikes and for Turkey to stop shelling Kurdish areas.

A tenuous ceasefire between the Turkish government and Kurdish militants in the country unraveled last summer amid spillover from the war in Syria. This time, Turkey appears anxious Kurdish fighters might reach Azaz, which is home to a major border crossing point that has been controlled by militants since 2012, the AP reported.

The PYD controls most of the Syrian side of Turkey’s border and Ankara views it as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade-old insurgency for autonomy in southeast Turkey and whose bases in Iraq’s Qandil mountains have been bombed repeatedly by the Turkish military.

The government also demanded, according to the letters, that the Security Council work to compel the countries backing terrorism, including Turkey, to comply with its relevant resolutions on fighting terrorism and bring them to account for their unlimited support to the terrorist groups.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency said Turkish forces fired at YPG fighters inside Syria on Sunday after coming under fire themselves.

Turkey’s Foreign Minster Mevlut Cavusoglu said Saturday that Ankara and Saudi Arabia could launch a ground operation against IS.

He also added that Riyadh will send fighter jets to the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey’s southern province of Adana where the U.S.-led coalition forces already deployed air force assets to combat the IS. If the YPG threatens our security, then we will do what is necessary, ” Davutoglu said on February 10, as quoted by the Hurriyet Daily.

“As of today, there is no decision regarding a ground operation”, he said.

He also cautioned that the Turkish military will have to face Russian forces if it intervenes in Syria.

However, neither the Syrian government nor the rebels were involved in the deal and both have since vowed to continue fighting.