By Sibel Ugurlu
ANKARA (AA) – Turkey may expand its operations in northern Syria to Manbij city and east of the Euphrates River after Afrin has been cleared, Turkey’s foreign minister said late Tuesday.
Mevlut Cavusoglu spoke to reporters after meeting with his U.S. counterpart Rex Tillerson in Vancouver, Canada, where he was attending the Vancouver Foreign Ministers' Meeting on Security and Stability on the Korean Peninsula.
“Turkey’s precautions against YPG/PKK cannot be limited to only Afrin. There is also Manbij and east of the Euphrates River,” Cavusoglu said.
Cavusoglu also said the U.S. plan to establish a border guard in northwest Syria “irreversibly harms U.S.-Turkey ties”.
On Sunday, Ryan Dillon, spokesperson for the U.S.-led coalition against Daesh, announced plans to establish a 30,000-strong border security force in Syria with the SDF — a U.S.-backed group drawn up largely of PYD/PKK terrorist elements.
The PYD/PKK is the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, which has been designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU.
Since the mid-1980s, the PKK has waged a wide-ranging terror campaign against the Turkish state in which an estimated 40,000 people have been killed.
