U.S. says Turkey’s attack in Syria puts Americans at risk

The U.S. expressed “great concern” over Turkey’s shelling of U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in an area of northern Syria where American forces are embedded, an offensive that has added a new strain to the NATO allies’ already rocky ties.

“Unilateral military strikes into northwest Syria by any party, particularly as American personnel may be present or in the vicinity, are of great concern to us,” Deputy State Department spokesman Robert Palladino told a news conference in Washington on Wednesday. The U.S. has been in touch with Turkey and a Kurdish-dominated Syrian militia to emphasize the need “to de-escalate the situation,” he said.

The offensive has already had repercussions for the campaign against Islamic State in Syria. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces “temporarily” suspended offensive actions against Islamic State in response to cross-border attacks by Turkey, Col. Sean Ryan, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting the jihadist group, said on Twitter on Thursday.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to crush separatist Kurdish militants operating in Syria along his country’s border, seeing them as an extension of the separatist Kurdish PKK group classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and European Union. Erdogan has dismissed the Pentagon’s concern that the military drive could compromise the battle against Islamic State in eastern Syria, where the Kurdish force is a key combatant.

In a sign that neither side wants the situation to escalate, Turkish and U.S. forces started joint patrols in rural areas of the northwestern Syrian town of Manbij, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said. Turkey, however, still wants Kurdish forces in Manbij to withdraw from the town.