President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that Turkey would “clear terrorists” on its border in northern Syria if Syrian Kurdish militia did not withdraw by the end of a deadline agreed with Russia.
“If the terrorists are not cleared at the end of the 150 hours, we will take control and clean it ourselves,” Erdogan said during a televised speech in Istanbul, referring to the YPG militia viewed as a “terrorist” offshoot of Kurdish insurgents in Turkey.
Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed a deal in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Tuesday in which Moscow will “facilitate the removal” of the fighters and their weapons from within 30 kilometres (18 miles) of the border.
The deadline ends at 6pm local time (1500 GMT) on Tuesday.
Despite his threat, Erdogan said Turkey had “to a large extent” reached its goal in terms of setting up a “safe zone” to protect against attacks from the Islamic State (IS) extremist group and the Kurdish YPG militia.
