Turkey will not allow a state to be founded in northern Syria: President Erdoğan


President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said on Friday that Turkey will not allow a new state to be founded in Turkey's southern south and in northern Syria.Speaking at the Turkish Red Crescent iftar event, Erdoğan said that those who try to associate Turkey with the terrorist organizations are making the biggest slander against this country and this nation and reminded that Turkey was the one who helped Kobani refugees during ISIS attacks of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Sham on the Syrian town.Erdoğan said that it was clear that Assad, ISIS and the People's Protection Units (YPG), outlawed-PKK's Syrian offshoot, and the outlawed PKK are in some sort of cooperation."I underline Turkey's stance once again, we will not allow a state to be established in southern Turkey's south and in northern Syria." Erdoğan said.Erdoğan's remarks came after reports of YPG driving out more than 800 Syrian Turkmens in a village some 10 kilometers east of Tal Abyad.President Erdoğan repeatedly voiced his concern over the mass displacement of Turkmens and Arabs as a result of Kurdish advances in Tal Abyad, and saying the operation against ISIS is replacing the population with PKK-affiliated Kurds, claiming they will become a threat to Turkey.While the U.S. was provides assistance to Kurds YPG and Free Syrian Army affiliated groups fighting ISIS, Turkey refrained from extending help to those groups that it designates as terrorists. Instead, Turkey came up with various ideas to cement cooperation in the fight against ISIS, one of which was to use peshmerga fighters from northern Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in the fight for Kobani and allow their passage through Turkey to Syria.