Tag

“It’s a very, very delicate and complex balancing act that the U.S. will need to undertake to keep Turkey on side in the fight against the Islamic State while continuing military cooperation and coordination with the YPG in northern Syria“, Hakura said.

Turkey launched the offensive against the Kurdish fighters about a week ago, which effectively ended fragile peace talks, following a rise in deadly violence in the country.

Turkish security officials said that the PKK members planted an explosive device on the side of a road near the village of Araköy in Şırnak, “and detonated it when a Turkish armored vehicle approached the location”.

Two soldiers were killed and two others wounded today in southeast Turkey when a mine exploded in an attack blamed on militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), security sources said. In a day of apparent tit-for-tat violence, shortly after the raids by F-16...

But in an unexpected twist, Turkey simultaneously started shelling Kurdish rebels in Iraq, where Kurds have proved unusually capable of wresting back territory from the Islamic State militants with the help of air support from the U.S.-led coalition.

Turkish fighter jets struck three Islamic State targets in Syria early Friday morning, a response to intelligence suggesting a likely attack from the group, government officials said.

Kurdish militants have raided a Turkish police station and fired on railway workers in two separate attacks, leaving five people dead.

“We are used to this”. Washington and Ankara this week announced their intention to provide air cover for Syrian rebels and jointly sweep Islamic State fighters from a strip of land along the border, with U.S. warplanes using bases in Turkey for strikes.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said earlier that a “secure zone” would pave the way for the return of 1.7 million Syria refugees now sheltering in Turkey after fleeing their country’s four-year civil war. Then, Turkey conducted its own airstrikes against the...

It was called after Turkish warplanes last week started striking militant targets in Syria in response to an Islamic State group suicide bombing in southern Turkey that left 32 people dead, and another IS attack on Turkish forces, which killed a soldier.

This is a significant change in policy: Ankara joined the anti-ISIL coalition when it was formed last September, but it has been the coalition’s most reluctant member, refusing to get directly involved against the group. More than 30 people were killed.

At a Pentagon briefing, Davis said that Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was reviewing the options that came with Turkey’s surprise announcement last week permitting the U.S.to use the Air Force base at Incirlik, Turkey, for strikes against ISIS in Syria, but decisions were...

Also Thursday, US officials announced they had reached a long-awaited agreement with Ankara to allow US airstrikes on Islamic State targets from a base near Turkey’s Syrian border, the Associated Press reports.

“But it’s wrong to expect that Turkey would undertake such a unilateral intervention in the immediate term if there is no such risk”, Davutoglu said.

Explaining the move, Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said it was created to protect the country’s border if Turkish security comes under threat.