Erdo?an vows to prevent Kurdish state in northern Syria, as Iran warns Turkey
President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an vowed to prevent the establishment of a Kurdish state in northern Syria, while Iran warned Turkey over military intervention into its neighbor.
"I am addressing the whole world: We will never allow a state to be formed in northern Syria, south of our border," Erdo?an said at a Ramadan event organized by Turkish Red Crescent in Istanbul late June 26.
"We will keep up with our struggle whatever the cost is. They are trying to complete an operation to change the demographics of the region. We will not condone," he said.
Turkey's pro-government media outlets have recently been claiming that Syrian Kurdish fighters who fought ISIL engaged in "ethnic cleansing" targeting Syrian Turkmens.
Erdo?an criticized those who supported the "#TerroristTurkey" hashtag on Twitter after the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) launched on June 25 its second offensive to capture Kobane, a Kurdish town near Syria's border with Turkey.
"If you have honor and pride, how can you label a country as terrorist although it hosts people who fled Kobane?" Erdo?an asked, before slamming accusations that Ankara supported ISIL as "slander."
The president also accused the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its Syrian affiliate PYD of preventing Turkey to help more to the people of Kobane.
"I strongly condemn the efforts to corner Turkey," he said, claiming that ISIL, the PKK and the Syrian regime were "aligned" to undermine Ankara.
The PYD's armed wing, the Kurdish People?s Protection Units (YPG), expelled ISIL fighters from Kobane on June 27 and took back full control of the town on the Turkish border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
Turkey?s...
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