Ayn al-Arab District

The United States is supporting the YPG in Syria but the group's presence in the war-torn country is becoming a threat to Turkey's national security, presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın has said.

A U.S.-led coalition air strike on Syrian army positions overnight killed at least 12 pro-regime fighters in an area where both sides have been battling holdout jihadists, a monitor said on May 24.

The United Kingdom has "a lot of respect and consideration" for the views of the Turkish government regarding the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), new British Ambassador to Ankara Sir Dominick Chilcott has told daily Hürriyet.

Turkish Presidential Spokesperson İbrahim Kalın said on April 7 that Turkey was talking to Russia about the Syrian town of Tel Rifaat and would not need to intervene in the area given Moscow's assurances that Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militants were not present there.

Some 2,516 People's Protection Units (YPG) militants were "neutralized" in Turkey's crossborder operation in northern Syria, the Turkish military said in a statement on March 3.

Two civilians were killed and at least 19 others injured by rocket attacks launched by Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militants from Syria across the Turkish border on Feb. 2. 

At least 823 People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants have been “neutralized” since the beginning of “Operation Olive Branch” in Syria’s Afrin district, the Turkish General Staff said Feb. 2.

A total of 557 Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants have been “neutralized” since the beginning of “Operation Olive Branch” in the northwestern Syria district of Afrin, the Turkish military said on Jan. 28. 

The U.S. will retrieve every weapon that could threaten Turkey from the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Pentagon said on Nov. 30.

A U.S.-backed Syrian opposition force said on June 11 that it had captured a northwestern neighborhood of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) self-declared capital of Raqqa, making it the second district to fall into their hands in as many days after the group launched a wide offensive to gain control of the extremists' de facto capital.