Türkiye receives support when it fights the Daesh terrorist group but not in its fight against the PKK, Ömer Çelik, the spokesperson for Türkiye's ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) said on Thursday.

Çelik emphasized during a televised interview on Habertürk TV that if counterterrorism operations were not carried out on Türkiye's border, terrorist structures would exist as statelets there.

Çelik said the PKK's course of action in Syria and Iraq is obviously guided by an entity that transcends the terrorist organization.

"Who is this? We are talking about whether it is a more collective structure. Judging by the way things are going, it seems to have received strong support. We've seen this before in Afghanistan. The U.S. used Russia. There was a proxy war," he said.

The PKK is a designated terrorist organization in the U.S., Türkiye and the European Union, and Washington’s support for its Syrian affiliate, the YPG, has been a major strain on bilateral relations with Ankara.

The U.S. primarily partnered with the YPG in northeastern Syria in its fight against the Daesh terrorist group. On the other hand, Türkiye strongly opposed the YPG terrorist group’s presence in northern Syria. Ankara has long objected to the U.S.’ support for the YPG, a group that poses a threat to Türkiye and terrorizes local people, destroying their homes and forcing them to flee.

Under the pretext of fighting Daesh, the U.S. has provided military training and given truckloads of military support to YPG terrorists, despite its NATO ally’s security concerns.

Underlining that one cannot support one terrorist group to defeat another, Türkiye conducted its own counterterrorism operations, over the course of which it has managed to remove a significant number of terrorists from the region.

He said the threat at Türkiye's frontiers would have increased if the Russia-Ukraine war had not taken place.

"If the Russia-Ukraine war had not occurred, imagine the equation where there is no war today. The threat on our borders would have grown even more."

"After all, it is not a choice but an existential necessity for Türkiye when it is threatened, including a distance of 30 kilometers from our border, to deploy and strike," he said.

Çelik added that these military operations would continue in order to secure Türkiye's national security, noting that they have uninterrupted contact with the people of the region and all groups.

"The longer this process takes, the more terrorist organizations begin to settle. The state and social structures here face great threats. Then, meeting with Syria and reopening the doors of communication come to the fore as a mandatory opening for the region," he added.

He said it is crucial to have powerful state structures surrounding Türkiye because they care about the territorial integrity of Syria and believe that the terrorist group threatens both Syria and Türkiye.

Recently, Türkiye launched Operation Claw-Sword, a cross-border aerial campaign against the PKK terrorist group and its Syrian wing, the YPG, which have illegal hideouts across the Iraqi and Syrian borders where they plan attacks on Turkish soil.

The country’s air operation followed a PKK/YPG terrorist attack on Nov. 13 on Istanbul’s crowded Istiklal Street that killed six people and left 81 injured.

After the air operation was launched, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also signaled a ground operation to northern Iraq and northern Syria to eliminate the terrorist threat, adding, "This is not limited to just an air operation."

The president specified northern Syria’s PKK/YPG-controlled Tal Rifaat, Manbij and Ain al-Arab (also known as Kobani) regions as possible targets to clear of terrorists.

Tal Rifaat lies 15 kilometers (9 miles) south of the border with Türkiye. The PKK/YPG controls the city and surrounding villages, and Russian troops are present in the area. The Syrian National Army (SNA) controls areas surrounding Tal Rifaat from the north, while Russian-backed Syrian troops control zones mostly to the south.

Russian troops are deployed in some PKK/YPG-controlled border areas of northern Syria following a 2019 agreement that sought to avert a previous Turkish operation threat.