President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday said Turkey had decided to postpone a military offensive in northern Syria against Kurdish militia after a phone call with US President Donald Trump, Sputnik Turkish service reported.
“Actually, we announced our decision to launch the operation east of the Euphrates last week,” Erdoğan said at a business meeting in İstanbul.
He told the audience Trump had asked him on the phone whether Turkey could get rid of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
“We did it before, we can do it again,” Erdoğan said he answered.
According to Erdoğan, Turkey has killed around 3,000 ISIL militants in Jarabulus, a Syrian city in Aleppo province.
US support for the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia in the fight against ISIL had been a complication in relations between the two NATO allies.
Turkey had previously conducted two military operations west of the Euphrates River, in the Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria.
