The German government is facing calls to halt arms exports to Turkey after reports emerged that German-made Leopard tanks were being used in an offensive against the Kurdish YPG.

Some German politicians have requested that any moves to approve a tank upgrade deal be halted.

Turkish-led forces began an assault in Syria’s north-west on Saturday.

The row comes just weeks after the two countries’ foreign ministers vowed to improve bilateral ties.

Relations between the two Nato members have soured dramatically in recent years.

Reports on Friday suggested Berlin was moving to approve a request from Turkey for German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall to upgrade its Leopard 2 tanks, to make them less vulnerable to explosives.

The tanks are thought to have been used by Turkey against the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria. However, defence experts have claimed in German media that recent images from Turkey’s “Operation Olive Branch” appear to show them being used against Kurdish groups.

Politicians from both the left and right have spoken out against the tank upgrade deal, and asked the government to clarify its position on the Turkish offensive in the Afrin region of northern Syria.

Norbert Röttgen, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and chairman of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, said it was “completely obvious” that Germany should not provide the upgrades.

He told BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight programme the intervention by Turkish forces was “illegal, contrary to international law and counter-productive with regard to fighting ISIS”.

He said Turkey could not claim to be acting in self-defence because “there have not been any attacks on Turkey by Kurdish forces in Syria”.

Mr Röttgen praised the US for speaking out against the Turkish offensive, saying: “The Americans are the only Nato allies who are clear about what is happening. We quite often criticise the Trump administration but at this point they are more clear and more courageous than the others, and we should follow.”

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Monday that he had called his Turkish counterpart to express concerns about the humanitarian impact of the Afrin offensive.

Turkey’s president has vowed to “crush” the People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia, which controls Afrin and more than 400km (250 miles) of Syria’s northern border.

On Tuesday the United Nations said an estimated 5,000 people have been displaced so far in the clashes in the Afrin region. </s> German government's spokesperson confirmed the report by Spiegel which stated that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel reached an agreement that only a possible new government formed by a coalition of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and and Social Democrats (SPD) should decide on any arms deliveries to Turkey.

"Concerning the current discussions about arms exports, the Federal Government is clear about the fact that Germany can not send arms in conflict areas and is not going to do so," Gabriel told Spiegel.

Suspending of arms deliveries to Turkey is believed to be a move aimed at easing tension in German society, as images of German Leopard tanks being used by the Turkish army in its offensive in Syria are making the German public feel increasingly uncomfortable.

The aim of the Turkish operation in the Syria's North, which continues for the sixth day already, is to eliminate Kurdish groups which Ankara considers to be terrorists, in particular the Kurdish militia YPG (People's Protection Units). However, Germany as well as the US consider the YPG units to be an effective force in fighting Daesh in the region.

READ MORE: Turkish Foreign Minister Expects US to Back Ankara in Syria, 'Not Terrorists'

Ankara's operation, dubbed Olive Branch, started after the US announced it is going to train a 30,000-strong border force at Syria's northern borders, which will largely consist of the Kurdish militias considered to be terrorist organizations by Turkey.

Turkey expressed its resentment over Washington's plans, with President Erdogan vowing to "strangle" the "terrorist army," which the US creates near its borders.

This position echoed the US stance, as Pentagon's spokesman stated that America understands Turkey's legitimate concern over security at its borders.

Russia, in its turn, noted responding to the situation in Syria, that the principle of preserving Syria's territorial integrity and sovereignty is fundamental. </s> KARKAMIS, Turkey — Turkey sent more tanks into northern Syria on Thursday and demanded Kurdish militia fighters retreat within a week as it seeks to secure the border region and drive back the Daesh terror group with its first major incursion into its neighbour.

Syrian rebels backed by Turkish special forces, tanks and warplanes on Wednesday entered Jarablus, one of Daesh’s last strongholds on the Turkish-Syrian border. Gunfire and explosions echoed around hills in the region on Thursday.

Some of the blasts were triggered as Turkish security forces cleared mines and booby traps left by retreating Daesh militants, according to Nuh Kocaaslan, the mayor of Karkamis, which sits just across the border from Jarablus.

Three Syrian rebels were killed during the operation to take Jarablus, one of them when he opened the door of a house rigged with explosives, Kocaaslan told reporters. There were no casualties among the Turkish troops.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and senior government officials have made clear the aim of “Operation Euphrates Shield” is as much about stopping the Kurdish YPG militia seizing territory and filling the void left by Daesh as about eliminating the radical group itself.

Turkey, which has NATO’s second biggest armed forces, demanded that the YPG retreat to the east side of the Euphrates River within a week. The Kurdish militia had moved west of the river earlier this month as part of a US-backed operation, now completed, to capture the city of Manbij from Daesh.

Ankara views the YPG as a threat because of its close links to Kurdish militants waging a three-decade-old insurgency on its own soil. It has been alarmed by the YPG’s gains in northern Syria since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, fearing it could extend Kurdish control along Turkish borders and fuel the ambitions of Kurdish insurgents in Turkey.

Turkey’s stance has put it at odds with Washington, which sees the YPG as a rare reliable ally on the ground in Syria, where Washington is trying to defeat Daesh while also opposing President Bashar Assad’s government in a complex, multi-sided five-year-old civil war.

The Syrian Kurdish force is one of the most powerful militias in Syria and regarded as the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed alliance formed last October to fight Daesh.

Turkish Defence Minister Fikri Isik said preventing the Kurdish PYD Party — the political arm of the YPG — from uniting Kurdish cantons east of Jarablus with those further west was a priority.

“Daesh should be completely cleansed, this is an absolute must. But it’s not enough for us.... The PYD and the YPG militia should not replace Islamic State [Daesh] there,” Isik told Turkish broadcaster NTV.

“The PYD’s biggest dream is to unify the western and eastern cantons. We cannot let this happen,” he said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry told Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu by phone on Thursday that YPG fighters were retreating to the east side of the Euphrates, as Turkey has demanded, foreign ministry sources in Ankara said.

A spokesman for the US-led coalition against Daesh also said the SDF had withdrawn across the Euphrates, doing so “to prepare for the eventual liberation” of Raqqa, the radical group’s stronghold in northern Syria, which is to the east.

Isik said the retreat was not yet complete and Washington had given assurances that this would happen in the next week.

“We are closely following this... If the PYD does not retreat to east of the Euphrates, we have the right to do everything about it,” he said.

The offensive is Turkey’s first major military operation since a failed July 15 coup shook confidence in its ability to step up the fight against Daesh. It came four days after a suicide bomber suspected of links to the group killed 54 people at a wedding in the southeastern city of Gaziantep.

US Vice President Joe Biden, who met Erdogan during a trip to Turkey on Wednesday, said Turkey was ready to stay in Syria for as long as it takes to destroy the radical Islamist group.

“I think there has been a gradual mind shift... in Turkey, with the realisation that ISIL [Daesh] is an existential threat to Turkey,” he told reporters during a visit to Sweden.

A Turkish official said the ground incursion had been in the works for more than two years but had been delayed by US reservations, resistance from some Turkish commanders, and a stand-off with Russia which had made air cover impossible.

Turkey had made the case more strongly to Washington over the past few months, had patched up relations with Russia, and had removed some of the Turkish commanders from their posts after finding they were involved in the coup attempt, paving the way for the operation to go ahead, the official said.

The incursion comes at a testing time for Turkish-US relations. Erdogan wants the United States to extradite Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania for 17 years and whose religious movement Turkey blames for staging last month’s failed coup.

Washington says it needs clear evidence of Gulen’s involvement and that it is a matter for the courts, a position that has sparked an outpouring of anti-Americanism from Turkey’s pro-government media. Gulen denies any role in the coup attempt.

The sound of gunfire, audible from a hill on the Turkish side of the border overlooking Jarablus, rang out early on Thursday and a plume of black smoke rose over the town. Warplanes flew overhead.

A senior Turkish official said there were now more than 20 Turkish tanks inside Syria and that additional tanks and construction machinery would be sent in as required. A Reuters witness saw at least nine tanks enter on Thursday, and 10 more were waiting outside a military outpost on the Turkish side.

“We need construction machinery to open up roads... and we may need more in the days ahead. We also have armoured personnel carriers that could be used on the Syrian side. We may put them into service as needed,” the official said.

Erdogan said on Wednesday that Daesh had been driven out of Jarablus and that it was now controlled by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels, who are largely Arab and Turkmen.

“The myth that the YPG is the only effective force fighting Daesh has collapsed,” Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin wrote on Twitter, reflecting Turkish frustration at how closely Washington has been working with the Kurdish militia.

Saleh Muslim, head of the Kurdish PYD, said on Wednesday that Turkey was entering a “quagmire” in Syria and faced defeat there like Daesh. Redur Xelil, spokesman for the YPG, said the intervention was a “blatant aggression in Syrian internal affairs”.

After seizing Jarablus, the Turkish-backed rebels have advanced up to 10km south of the border town, rebel sources and a group monitoring the war said.

But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said Kurdish-backed forces opposed by Ankara had gained up to 8km of ground northwards, apparently seeking to pre-empt advances by the rebels. </s> Turkey says it has suffered its deadliest day yet in northern Syria since launching its offensive against YPG Kurdish fighters there more than two weeks ago.

On Saturday, eight Turkish soldiers were killed, according to a Turkish army statement.

Some died after their tank came under fire from Syrian Kurdish forces.

Turkey wants to push the YPG, which it says are "terrorists", out of Afrin to create a buffer zone along its southern border.

YPG fighters targeted the Turkish army tank in Sheikh Haruz, northeast of Afrin, killing five soldiers. Three other soldiers were killed in fighting elsewhere in Afrin.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim promised to retaliate in a statement on Twitter.

"They will pay for this twice as much. We have given the necessary response instantly, and we continue to do so," Yildirim said.

Immediately after the attack at Sheikh Haruz, an air operation targeting YPG positions and weapon storages in the area was launched, the army said.

Turkey's Operation Olive Branch began on January 20 along with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to clear armed Kurdish groups and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) fighters from Afrin in northwestern Syria.

Since the start of the operation, Kurdish fighters have carried out cross-border attacks by firing rockets into southern Turkey.

According to the Turkish army, the operation aims to establish security and stability along Turkish borders and the region as well as to protect Syrians from what Ankara called "terrorist oppression and cruelty".

Meanwhile, Syrian rebels shot down a Russian warplane in northwestern Idlib province on Saturday, the Russian defence ministry said.

The pilot of the aircraft, a Sukhoi 25, used his ejection seat after his plane was hit by a man-carried portable air defence missile.

He was later killed when rebels tried to capture him.

"The pilot managed to report the ejection in the area controlled by the militants of Jabhat al-Nusra, but later he died fighting the terrorists," a statement by the Russian ministry of defence said.

The downing of the aircraft has been claimed by Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham, commonly known as Tahrir al-Sham. The group is spearheaded by the former al-Nusra Front, which used to be al-Qaeda's branch in Syria.

Moscow has retaliated with dozens of attacks in which at least 10 civilians were killed, according to local activists. Russia says it has killed 30 fighters.

There has been heavy fighting in Idlib for weeks. The UN says about 100,000 civilians have been displaced. </s> The German government has been dealing with recent debates in the German media regarding the Leopard tanks that are currently being used in Operation Olive Branch against the PKK terrorist organization's Syrian affiliate, the Democratic Union Party's (PYD) People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, which has received heavy military support from the United States.

The debates include claims that the Turkish military is using the tanks illegally. Ankara is a NATO ally of Berlin that has long been fighting the PKK, a group recognized as a terrorist group by the U.S. and the EU. Germany has also ignored the YPG's response to Turkey's attacks with German weapons as well.

Following the debates and demands of some German politicians to put an immediate halt to arms sales to Turkey, Der Spiegel claimed yesterday that Germany has stopped the modernization of German tanks that were sold to Turkey. However, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu immediately denied the claims yesterday, saying that there has been no cancellation of the upgrades of the German-made tanks in Turkey.

"A commission was going to meet regarding the tanks. That meeting is delayed. There is no cancellation of the modernization of the tanks," Çavuşoğlu said in a joint press conference in Istanbul with Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl.

Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Berlin had put a temporary halt on arms deals with Turkey and that he had "asked the secretary-general of NATO to also discuss within NATO the situation in Syria and in the country's north."

A government spokesman said Chancellor Angela Merkel from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Gabriel, from the Social Democratic Party (SDP), had agreed Berlin would not decide on the Turkish request before both parties had sealed a new coalition deal, Reuters reported.

Gabriel said in a statement that arms exports would be a big topic for discussion in negotiations on forming a new German coalition government, which are due to begin today. "For this reason, we in the caretaker government agree we don't want to anticipate the results of the current coalition negotiations, and we will wait for the formation of a new government before weighing up critical projects."

Gabriel said that Germany, the world's third-biggest arms exporter, is very concerned about the military conflict in northern Syria and had asked the NATO secretary-general to advise NATO members on the situation there.

On Tuesday, Stefan Liebich, a deputy from the Left Party, said they must stop weapons sales to Turkey since "this is no longer a war we should play any part in." Agnieszka Brugger, a lawmaker and defense expert for Germany's Green Party, also said that the German government must not look away again and needs to clearly state its position on the Turkish offensive against Kurds in Syria.

The sale of Leopard tanks to Turkey started 35 years ago. According to information gathered from the federal government, between 1982 and 1993, 391 Leopard and 1 archetype tanks were sold to Turkey. The sale of German tanks to Turkey continued with upgraded models in the following years. In between 2006 and 2011, Berlin sold 354 Leopard 2A4 tanks to Ankara. In 2005, Germany prohibited Turkey from delivering the tanks to a third country or party without its permission in accordance with the agreement between the two countries. The agreement did not have any other restrictions and removed the restriction that the tanks "can be used only in case of defense," which was valid for the Leopard 1 models for the upgraded versions of the tanks. The tanks were used in Operation Euphrates Shield against the Daesh terrorist organization, as well.

According to Die Welt, however, while Turkey is using German-made Leopard tanks against the YPG, the YPG also uses German weapons in response to the Turkish attacks."The fact that Turkey uses German Leopard tanks for their Operation Olive Branch and the Kurds oppose them with German weapons that were originally delivered to the peshmerga in northern Iraq, finally puts the fighting in the sphere of German domestic politics and the arms export debate," a Die Welt article said. However, this does not change that the PKK, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU and U.S., is using Western weapons against Turkey.

However, this is not the first time the PKK's affiliates have been supported with Western weapons.

Germany has sold many Milan anti-tank missiles to the YPG, which were also displayed in the pages of Der Spiegel magazine.

Not only Germany, but also other European states have sold weapons to the YPG. For instance, Italy has sold mines, and France was supporting the YPG with military equipment.

The PKK has been using Russian-made DShK 1938s, a Soviet heavy machine gun firing 12.7x108 millimeter cartridge, mortars of various sizes, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and other explosives.

It also uses Kalashnikovs, U.S.- made M16 infantry rifles, Austrian-made handguns and Russian- and Chinese-made RPG 7s – portable, unguided, shoulder-launched, anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

Most recently, the U.S. started to send weapons to the YPG, claiming that it is its partners in the fight against Daesh, as if these weapons would never be used against NATO ally Turkey. Despite Ankara's protests, the U.S. continued its support to the YPG for two years, referring to it as a reliable ally, which deeply affected relations between the two countries. On Jan. 16, spokesman for the United States-led coalition against Daesh Col. Ryan Dillon said that Syria's northern Afrin region is not a part of the U.S.'s area of operations against Daesh and that it does not support YPG elements in the area.

According to security officials in Turkey and Syria, the formation of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) more than two years ago also provided the U.S. with an opportunity to deepen its relationship with the PYD and YPG.

The SDF was formed in October 2015 when the YPG incorporated several armed groups.

The SDF is used as a fig leaf to disguise U.S. support for the YPG. The Pentagon said last week that U.S. forces are operating in close proximity with SDF fighters in northern Syria, including near the Turkish border. Images from Syria shared on social media often show militants wearing SDF and YPG insignias fighting alongside each other. </s> HASSA, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkey shelled targets in northwest Syria on Monday and said it would swiftly crush U.S.-backed Kurdish YPG fighters in an air and ground offensive on the Afrin region beyond its border.

The three-day-old campaign has opened a new front in Syria’s multi-sided civil war, realigning a battlefield where outside powers are supporting local combatants.

While Washington and other Western capitals expressed concern, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he had secured a go-ahead for the campaign from Russia, principal backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, long Turkey’s foe.

Turkey sees the YPG presence on its southern border as a domestic security threat.

Turkish forces and their Syrian anti-Assad rebel allies began their push on Saturday to clear the northwestern border enclave of Kurdish YPG fighters. Ankara considers the YPG to be allies of insurgents that have fought against the Turkish state for decades. The United States, meanwhile, has armed and aided the YPG as its main ground allies against Islamic State.

Senior U.N. officials briefed the United Nations Security Council behind closed doors on Monday, at the request of France, on the humanitarian and political situation in Syria.

“With respect to the situation in Afrin, it was of course part of the conversation,” said French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre after the meeting, adding that it was mentioned by most of the 15 council members. “France calls on Turkey for restraint in the volatile environment that we all know in Syria.”

But Erdogan said Turkey was determined to press ahead. “There’s no stepping back from Afrin,” he said in a speech in Ankara. “We discussed this with our Russian friends, we have an agreement with them, and we also discussed it with other coalition forces and the United States.”

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Washington had proposed working with Turkey and forces on the ground in Afrin to “see how we can stabilise this situation and meet Turkey’s legitimate concerns for their security.”

But Turkey said Washington must end its support for the Kurdish YPG militia before any proposal for cooperation: “If they want a cooperation, we are ready for this cooperation. As the first step to take, they can stop arming terror groups and take back weapons already given,” Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

Syria has objected to the Turkish incursion, and Moscow, which controls parts of Syrian air space on behalf of its allies in Damascus, has not confirmed giving a green light to it. But Russia does not appear to be acting to prevent it, and has pulled its own troops out of the Afrin area.

Iran, Assad’s other main military supporter, called for a halt to the operation. Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said the Afrin campaign could lead to “the return of regional terrorism and extremism”, according to state television.

The YPG’s Afrin spokesman, Birusk Hasaka, said there were clashes between Kurdish and Turkish-backed forces on the third day of the operation, and that Turkish shelling had hit civilian areas in Afrin’s northeast.

Afrin would be a “quagmire from which the Turkish army will only exit after suffering great losses”, said a statement from the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces umbrella group.

The YPG said Afrin had already been reinforced in anticipation of the Turkish offensive, and there were discussions over whether to send more reinforcements from other YPG-held territory, which is separated from Afrin by areas held by Syrian government forces.

The United Nations has said it is deeply concerned for the more than 300,000 people in Afrin. Spokeswoman Linda Tom said there were reports of people displaced within Afrin by the fighting, and of smaller numbers heading to nearby Aleppo.

Ankara has been infuriated by U.S. support for the YPG, one of several issues that have brought relations between the United States and its Muslim NATO ally close to breaking point.

Erdogan has also pledged to drive the SDF from the town of Manbij to the east, part of a much larger area of northern Syria controlled by the YPG-led SDF. That raises the prospect of protracted conflict between Turkey and its allied Free Syrian Army factions against the U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek played down the long-term risks: “Our investors should be at ease, the impact will be limited, the operation will be brief and it will reduce the terror risk to Turkey in the period ahead,” he said.

A senior Turkish official declined to give a timeframe but said the operation would “move fast”, adding that Turkey believed there was some local support for its action in both Afrin and Manbij.

YPG official Nouri Mahmoud said Turkish-backed forces had not taken any territory in Afrin. “Our forces have to this point repelled them and forced them to retreat,” he told Reuters.

A Turkish official said Turkish troops and allied Free Syrian Army fighters had begun to advance on Afrin’s eastern flank, taking control of a hill northwest of the town of Azaz. An FSA commander later told Reuters YPG forces had recaptured the summit of Barshah hill.

A Reuters cameraman near Hassa, across the border from Afrin, saw Turkish shelling on Monday morning. Dogan news agency said Turkish howitzers opened fire at 1 a.m. (2200 GMT), and that YPG targets were also being hit by Turkish warplanes and multiple rocket launchers.

Defeating the YPG in Afrin would reduce Kurdish-controlled territory on Turkey’s frontier and link up two regions controlled by insurgents opposed to Assad - Idlib province and an area where Turkey fought for seven months in 2016-17 to drive back Islamic State and the YPG.

The Turkish-backed FSA factions, which have come together under the banner of a newly branded “National Army”, also want to see an end to YPG rule in Afrin. They accuse the YPG of displacing 150,000 Arab residents of towns including Tel Rifaat and Menigh to the east of Afrin, captured in 2016.

“This is a historic moment in our revolution,” Mohammad al-Hamadeen, a senior officer in the FSA forces, told fighters in Azaz on Sunday as they prepared to join the ground offensive.

“God willing, very soon we will return to our region that we were driven from two years ago.” </s> Turkey has ended the “Euphrates Shield” military operation it launched in Syria last August, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Wednesday, but suggested there might be more cross-border campaigns to come. Turkey sent troops, tanks and warplanes to support Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels, push Islamic State fighters away from its border and stop the advance of Kurdish militia fighters.

“Operation Euphrates Shield has been successful and is finished. Any operation following this one will have a different name,” Yildirim said in an interview with broadcaster NTV. Under Euphrates Shield, Turkey took the border town of Jarablus on the Euphrates river, cleared Islamic State fighters from a roughly 100-km (60-mile) stretch of the border, then moved south to al-Bab, an Islamic State stronghold where Yildirim said “everything is under control”.

Turkish troops are still stationed in the secured regions and along the border. The number of Turkish troops involved in Euphrates Shield has not been disclosed. One aim was to stop the Kurdish YPG militia from crossing the Euphrates westwards and linking up three mainly Kurdish cantons it holds in northern Syria.

Turkey fears the Syrian Kurds carving out a self-governing territory analogous to Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, a move that might embolden Turkey’s own large Kurdish minority to try to forge a similar territory inside its borders. It views the YPG as the Syrian extension of the Kurdish PKK militant group, which has fought an insurgency in Turkey’s southeast since 1984 and is considered a terrorist group by both the United States and European Union.

With the second largest army in NATO, Turkey is seeking a role for its military in a planned offensive on Raqqa, one of Islamic State’s two de facto capitals along with Mosul in Iraq -but the United States is veering towards enlisting the YPG. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey is saddened by the U.S. and Russian readiness to work with the YPG in Syria.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App now </s> ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish troops and tanks carried out military exercises on the border with Syria on Saturday, state-run media reported, while a monitoring group said a Turkish convoy had crossed the frontier into northern Syria.

Turkey’s military sent tanks and armored vehicles to the border in the second day of reinforcements near the province of Idlib, the last major rebel stronghold in Syria.

On Friday, a Turkish security source said the Turkish army had been rotating forces in and out of the region, and declined to say whether the latest movement was in preparation for an operation inside Syria itself.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based monitoring group, said a Turkish convoy had entered Syria.

Islamist fighters have tightened their control over the Idlib region following more than a week of fighting with Turkey-backed Syrian rebels.

The rise of the jihadist Hayat Tahrir al Sham has raised doubt over the future of a deal agreed in September between Turkey - which has several military observation posts in Idlib - and President Bashar al-Assad’s main ally Russia to avert a Syrian government army assault. The agreement requires banned Islamist groups to be expelled from a frontline buffer zone.

The escalation in Idlib comes as U.S. forces prepare to withdraw from a separate region of northern and eastern Syria.

Earlier on Saturday, the Turkish defense minister, chief of general staff and the intelligence agency head visited border military units and discussed “measures to establish peace and stability in the region,” the ministry said in a statement.

“We are making every effort to preserve the ceasefire and stability in Idlib, in line with the Sochi agreement. Our close cooperation with Russia continues,” Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said.

Akar’s comments came a day after Russia said it remained committed to the agreement it had struck with Turkey to stabilize a de-escalation zone in Idlib, but said Moscow was worried by an increase in the number of ceasefire violations. </s> BEIRUT/ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey warned on Monday it would confront Syrian government forces if they entered Syria’s northwestern Afrin region to help the Kurdish YPG militia repel a Turkish offensive.

Turkey began its Afrin operation with allied Syrian rebels last month against the YPG, which Ankara sees as a threat along its border with links to the Kurdish PKK insurgency at home.

Ankara’s onslaught has further scrambled the matrix of rivalries and alliances in northern Syria among Kurdish forces, the Syrian government, insurgent factions, Turkey, Iran, the United States and Russia.

Monday’s comments by Turkey’s president and two of his ministers came after a senior Kurdish official said on Sunday that a deal had been struck for the Syrian army to go into Afrin soon to help fight the assault.

But YPG spokesman Nouri Mahmoud denied on Monday reaching such an agreement with the Damascus government.

Syrian state media said in the morning that pro-government militia would enter Afrin “within hours” but by sunset there were no signs of a deployment there. Turkey also said the report that Syrian troops were entering the region was “not true”.

“If (the Syrian army) comes in to defend the YPG, then nothing and nobody can stop Turkish soldiers,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in Jordan. Turkey would have no issue with Syrian troops entering Afrin if they did so to “cleanse” it of the Kurdish fighters, he added.

President Tayyip Erdogan later said in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Damascus would face consequences if it struck a deal with the YPG and said the Afrin operation would continue, CNN Turk reported. [L8N1Q93JQ]

There was no immediate comment from the Syrian military or from Moscow.

Erdogan also spoke to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani about developments in Syria’s Idlib and Afrin, a Turkish source said.

Badran Jia Kurd, an adviser to the Kurdish-led autonomous administration in north Syria, said on Sunday there was a military understanding between Damascus and Kurdish forces for the Syrian army to enter Afrin. But he added that it faced opposition which could derail it.

Another Syrian Kurdish political official said on Monday that pressure from Russia, the key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, had prevented the deal from going ahead so far.

YPG spokesman Nouri Mahmoud said there was only ”a call from us for the Syrian army to come in and protect the borders.

“This is its duty,” he said. “So far, the Syrian army has not fulfilled its duty towards Afrin.”

Deals between the Syrian government and the Kurdish forces, which each hold more territory than any other side in Syria, could prove pivotal for the future course of the war.

Since the onset of Syria’s conflict in 2011, the YPG and its allies have set up three autonomous cantons in the north, including Afrin bordering Turkey. Their sphere of influence expanded as they seized territory from Islamic State militants with U.S. help, though Washington opposes their political ambitions as does the Syrian government.

While Assad’s government and the YPG espouse different visions for Syria’s future and their forces have clashed at times, they have mostly avoided direct conflict.

Jia Kurd told Reuters on Sunday that Syrian army troops would deploy along some border positions under the deal between the Kurdish fighters and Damascus. He said the deal was only on military aspects and any political or other agreements would have to wait for further talks.

“Popular forces will arrive in Afrin in the next few hours to support the steadfastness of its people in confronting the aggression,” Syrian state news agency SANA said earlier.

Ankara regards the YPG as indistinguishable from the PKK, though the groups say they are independent from each other. Turkey, the United States, and Europe classify the PKK, a leftist Kurdish movement that has mounted a three-decade insurgency inside Turkey, as a terrorist organisation.

The Afrin offensive has strained the complex ties between the warring sides in northern Syria and their external supporters.

Turkey’s NATO ally the United States has armed the YPG as part of an alliance it backs in Syria against Islamic State, which has infuriated Ankara.

But while Washington has a military presence in the much larger swathes of Syria that the YPG and its allies control further east, it has not given support to the YPG in Afrin.

This month, the United States said it had killed hundreds of pro-government troops in strikes in eastern Syria because they were attacking the militia alliance that the YPG spearheads.
Turkey sends more tanks into northern Syria to continue its offensive against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).