Suspected IS militants kill Turkish soldier

The state-run Anadolu news agency said a soldier was killed after shots were fired from across the border in Syria into the southern province of Kilis, with Turkey responding by pounding militant positions with artillery. His corpse, a rocket launcher and an AK-47 used by the militants had been seized, the army said, without specifying if troops had crossed into Syria to take them. Following the Suruc attack, two Turkish policemen were shot dead by militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who said the killings were retaliation for the suicide bombing that claimed Kurdish victims.

Turkey’s stance has frustrated some of its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies, including the United States, whose priority is fighting Islamic State rather than Assad, and who have urged Turkey to do more to prevent its 900-km (560-mile) Syrian border being used as a conduit by foreign jihadis.

Another Turkish official said fighter jets had been scrambled to the Syrian border.

It said that the accord was finalized in telephone talks Wednesday between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his US counterpart Barack Obama.

Ankara has expressed concern to the United States about advances made by the YPG, which, backed by U.S. airstrikes, has taken territory from the Islamic State along the Syrian side of the Turkish border in recent months.

Turkey has also sent fighter jets to the Syrian border after clashes with IS, a Turkish official told Reuters.

Turkey had reinforced its border at Kilis a day earlier, deploying elite special forces units there, a government official told The Associated Press.

Turkey has been negotiating an end to the PKK’s 30-year campaign for autonomy for Turkey’s estimated 14 million Kurds and is anxious about its growing influence in war-torn Syria.

It is the latest violence to hit Kurdish-dominated south-east Turkey, three days after 32 people were killed by a bomber linked to IS in Suruc.

Police Chief Halis Bogurcu said the officers were gunned down after they were called to a street in Diyarbakir, the region’s largest city, by people who reported a hoax traffic accident.

Some parts of the Turkish media have questioned whether Suruc marked an attack against Turkish interests – raising the threat of more strikes across the country – or simply a spill over from the conflict between Kurds and the Islamic State in Syria. A moat will also be dug at some points. “As we see Islamic State as a danger, we will start security work especially targeting them”.

It inflamed tensions with Turkey’s Kurdish minority, which is unhappy over the lack of support provided by the government to Kurdish militias fighting IS inside Syria.

The Turkish army is still firing on IS positions in Ayyasha, but have yet to drive out the militants there, reported the pro-Syrian uprising website Eldorar Eshamiya. The Turkish soldiers came under sudden fire from across the border, and they returned fire on their assailants.

The unrest comes at a critical time for Turkey following elections in which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Erdogan lost its overall majority in parliament for the first time since coming to power in 2002.