Ankara: YPG forces are not a target, and govt is investigating claims

Kurdish fighters in northern Syria accused the Turkish army of shelling their positions on Monday, highlighting the precarious path Ankara is treading as it simultaneously battles Islamic State in Syria and Kurdish insurgents in Iraq.

Long a reluctant member of the US-led coalition against Islamic State, Turkey last week made a dramatic turnaround by granting the alliance access to its air bases and bombarding targets in Syria linked to the jihadist movement.

The NATO member also launched a second night of airstrikes on Kurdish insurgent camps in Iraq on Sunday, part of what a senior government official described as a "full-fledged battle against all terrorist organizations".

The renewed military campaign against the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state partly from camps in northern Iraq, has raised suspicions that Turkey's real agenda is checking Kurdish territorial ambitions rather than fighting Islamic State.

Ankara is concerned that the success in northern Syria of the Kurdish YPG militia, which has pushed back Islamic State with the help of US-led airstrikes, will stoke separatist sentiment among its own Kurds and embolden the PKK.

Turkey's Kurds say that by reviving open conflict with the PKK, President Tayyip Erdogan is also seeking to undermine support for the pro-Kurdish opposition ahead of a possible early election.

In a statement, the YPG said that the Turkish army had shelled its positions in a village on the outskirts of the Islamic State-held border town of Jarablus and urged Ankara to halt attacks on its forces.

Several tank rounds from across the border hit its positions and the Turkish army was targeting them instead of the terrorists, the YPG statement said.

A senior Turkish official confirmed that the Turkish army had shot back after it came under fire from across the border late on Sunday, but said it was unclear which group was involved and stressed that the YPG was not a target.

"The ongoing military operation seeks to neutralize imminent threats to Turkey's national security and continues to target Islamic State in Syria and the PKK in Iraq," the official said, adding that Ankara was investigating.

"The PYD (the political wing of the YPG), along with others, remains outside the scope of the current military effort."

Notable partner

The PYD has emerged as the only notable partner so far on the ground for the US-led alliance as it fights Islamic State in northern Syria.

But the Kurdish group has links to the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States. The two share not only ideology but fighters, with the PKK drawing Syrian Kurdish fighters to its camps in northern Iraq and Turkish Kurds among the PYD ranks.

That has made for an uneasy compromise between Washington and Ankara.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was quoted on Monday as saying the PYD could "have a place in the new Syria" if it did not disturb Turkey.

Reuters - AFP