U.S. caught in middle as allies clash

ANKARA • Turkey’s president has vowed to press ahead with his country’s military operation inside Syria despite U.S. pleas to halt the incursion.

It was the first U.S. criticism of its NATO ally since it launched a U.S.-backed incursion into northern Syria to help Syrian rebels seize the town of Jarablus from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The battle now pits Turkey against the Kurdish-led force known as the Syria Democratic Forces — a U.S.backed proxy that is the most effective ground force battling ISIL militants in Syria’s five-year-old civil war. It puts Washington in the difficult spot of having to choose between two allies, and it is likely to divert resources from the fight against ISIL.

U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter said Washington has asked Turkey to “stay focused” on the fight against ISIL and not to engage with the SDF.

“We’ve called on both sides not to fight one another, not to fight each other,” Carter said.

Turkish officials responded by insisting that Kurdish forces “immediately” withdraw east of the Euphrates River or face more attacks by Turkish forces.

“No one has the right to tell Turkey to ‘fight this terror organization but don’t fight that terror organization,’ ” said Omer Celik, a Turkish cabinet minister.

The sharp rhetoric — and the continued fighting — reflects the complicated and conflicting interests at stake in northern Syria after Turkish tanks rolled across the border Aug. 24 with the dual aim of containing the ISIL group and Kurdish forces.

The U.S. has supported Turkey in its demand that the SDF withdraw east of the Euphrates, which cuts into Jarablus. Turkey’s goal is to clear the region south of Jarablus of Kurdish forces, thus keeping them from linking with other Kurdishcontrolled areas in Afrin in Syria’s northwestern corner.

Turkey pressed ahead with its offensive, seemingly bent on creating a de facto “safe zone” free of ISIL and the Kurds near its border. The Turkish military said Turkey-backed Syrian rebels have cleared 10 more villages of “terrorist entities” and now control an area totalling some 400 square kilometres south and west of Jarablus.

Syrian opposition groups reported that Turkish-backed Syrian rebels have captured more towns and villages as part of the operation named “Euphrates Shield,” now in its sixth day.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkish operations will continue “until terror organizations such as Daesh, the PKK and its Syrian arm, the YPG, cease to be threats for our citizens.”

Daesh is the Arabic name for ISIL; the PKK is the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has waged a 30-year insurgency in Turkey; and the YPG is the main Syrian Kurdish force known as the People’s Protection Units.