Turkey could join US Raqa operation only without Kurds

ANKARA: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey could join a US-led operation in Syria to retake the IS group’s stronghold of Raqa only if Kurdish fighters are not involved, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

Erdogan said that if the US conducted its Raqa operation with Syrian Kurdish forces, Turkey would “not have any place” in the offensive.

“If they do not insert the PYD and YPG into this business, then certainly, we can get (involved) with the US in this fight,” he told reporters on the plane back from this week’s UN General Assembly in New York, quoted in the Hurriyet daily.

Adding that it would be a “shame” if the US and Turkey could not counter the 10,000 IS militants on the ground in Syria, he called for a “national army” of Syrian rebels to take the region’s security into their own hands, saying there were 65,000 such fighters.

US military chief Joe Dunford said last week that Washington was considering arming Syrian Kurdish forces ahead of a Raqa offensive.