Washington and Ankara are ready to work together to push Takfiri ISILgroup out of their self-declared Syrian capital of Raqa, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in comments published Wednesday.
Erdogan said he had agreed with President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in China to do “what is necessary” to drive ISIL out of Raqa.
“Raqa is the most important centre of Daesh,” Erdogan told Turkish journalists onboard his plane as he returned from China, using an Arabic acronym for ISIL.
“Obama wants to do something together especially on the issue of Raqa,” he said. “I said there would be no problem from our perspective.”
“I said ‘our soldiers should come together and discuss, then what is necessary will be done’,” Erdogan was quoted as saying by the Hurriyet daily.
Without giving further details, he said: “What can be done will become clear after the discussions.”
Raqa, which lies on the Euphrates River, was first taken by Takfiris in 2013 with ISIL declaring the city its capital in 2014.
Erdogan’s comments came two weeks after Turkey launched an ambitious operation inside Syria, sending tanks and special forces in what Ankara says it is aimed at backing up Syrian opposition militants and cleanse its frontier from ISIL insurgents and Kurdish militia.
Ankara-backed rebels seized Jarablus from ISIL militants within hours on the first day of the operation and Turkey says ISIL militants have now been removed from the entire border area.
Turkey has been alarmed by US support for the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia which Ankara sees as a “terrorist” group linked to its own Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which has been waging a bloody campaign against the Turkish state.
“We need to show we are present in the region,” said Erdogan.
“If we take a step back, terror groups like Daesh, PKK, PYD or YPG will settle there.”
Source: AFP
