YEREVAN, AUGUST 24, ARMENPRESS. An official source at the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry of Syria said that Turkish tanks and armored vehicles on Wednesday morning crossed the Syrian-Turkish borders towards Jarablos city under cover of the Us-led alliance’s air forces, “Armenpress” reports, citing Sana. 
 
 The source said Syria asserts that fighting terrorism on Syrian territory by any side must be conducted by coordinating with the Syrian government and the Syrian Arab Army which has been fighting terrorism for over five years. 
 
 The source stressed that Syria condemns this blatant violation of its sovereignty and affirms that fighting terrorism isn’t done by ousting ISIS and replacing it with other terrorist organizations backed directly by Turkey. 
 
 “What is happening in Jarablos now isn’t fighting terrorism as Turkey claims; rather it is replacing one type of terrorism with another,” the source said, adding that Syria requests putting an end to this aggression and calls on the United Nations to implement its resolutions, in addition to stressing the need for the Turkish side and the US-led alliance to respect international resolutions, particularly those related to closing borders and drying up the sources of terrorism. ||||| ANKARA, Turkey—Vice President Joe Biden struck a conciliatory tone during a daylong visit to Turkey, as the Obama administration tries to smooth over thorny relations after last month’s failed coup. 
 
 Mr. Biden, the first senior White House official to meet with the Turkish leadership since the takeover attempt, apologized to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for not visiting the country sooner after last month’s failed coup, scolded U.S.-backed Kurds and avoided publicly raising concerns about the government’s recent widespread... ||||| Vice President Joe Biden and Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim hold a joint press conference following their meeting Wednesday at the Cankaya Palace in Ankara. Biden said Washington had made clear that pro-Kurdish forces in Syria must not to cross west of the Euphrates River, a prospect alarming for Turkey. His comments come after Turkish troops launched an operation inside Syria to cleanse the key town of Jarabulus from Islamic State jihadists. (Photo: ADEM ALTAN, AFP/Getty Images) 
 
 WASHINGTON — Vice President Biden told Turkish officials in Ankara Wednesday that it would be "an impeachable offense" for President Obama to turn over a cult leader living in Pennsylvania who Turkey suspects is behind the attempted coup last month. 
 
 "Under American law no president of the United States has authority to extradite anyone on his own power. Only an American court can do that," Biden said after meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım. "We have no, no, no, no interest whatsoever in protecting anyone who has done harm to an ally, but we need to meet legal standard requirement under our law." 
 
 The extradition of Fethullah Gülen, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, has long been a point of friction between the United States and Turkey, a strategically important NATO ally whose help is crucial to the fight against the Islamic State. But those tensions flared up after an coup attempt on July 15, which Turkey blames on the cleric and opposition leader. 
 
 "This heinous coup attempt was in our opinion orchestrated and instructed by Fethullah Gülen, and as per the treaties we have, the necessary steps should be taken with a view to his extradition," Yıldırım told Biden. He said a team of lawyers dispatched from Washington to review the case "is clear sign from your side that you’re taking this seriously and attaching great importance to it." 
 
 Biden also reassured Turkish leaders that the United States had no advance knowledge or "Let me be clear. I want to ease any speculation, some of which I have heard, as to whether or not the U.S. had some advance warning, some foreknowledge or complicity," he said. "The people of the United States of America abhor what happened, and under no circumstances would support anything remotely approaching the cowardly act of the treasonous members of military." 
 
 Biden's arrival in the Turkish capital came just hours after a joint operation by coalition forces — including the U.S. and Turkey — launched an offensive to to capture an Islamic State stronghold across the border in Syria. 
 
 But that operation, too, required delicate diplomacy by Biden. The U.S. is coordinating its efforts with a Kurdish militia force known as the YPG. Turkey considers it a terrorist group supporting Kurdish separatists inside Turkey. Yıldırım acknowledged that the Islamic State is the "greater threat," but insisted that YPG forces remain east of the Euphrates River. 
 
 "They must move back across the river," Biden agreed. "They cannot — will not — under any circumstance get American support if they do not keep that commitment." 
 
 Biden and Yıldırım spoke at a news conference following a meeting that also discussed human rights issues in Turkey. Earlier, Biden also toured the parliament building, which was damaged in the coup attempt. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2bnjhHu ||||| Story highlights Syrian rebels have captured key border town from ISIS, Turkish media say 
 
 Turkish President says operation also aimed at Syrian Kurdish fighters 
 
 Istanbul, Turkey (CNN) Turkish tanks entered northern Syria on Wednesday to help Syrian rebels clear ISIS from a border town, Turkish state media reported -- a move that follows recent attacks that the republic blames on terror groups. 
 
 By Wednesday evening, the Ankara-backed Free Syrian Army had captured the town, Jarablus, which is less than a kilometer from Turkey and the last major community ISIS had held on the Syrian-Turkish border, Turkey's semiofficial Anadolu agency reported. 
 
 Turkish tanks and allied Syrian rebels move along the border Wednesday. 
 
 Turkey's incursion into Syrian territory is part of a larger effort to battle not only ISIS, but also Kurdish fighters in northern Syria that Ankara opposes, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. 
 
 "(Wednesday's operation) started in the north of Syria against terror groups which constantly threaten our country, like (ISIS) and the PYD," Erdogan said, referring to a Syrian Kurdish opposition political party. 
 
 Pictures distributed by Agence France-Presse showed tanks rolling near the border Wednesday west of Jarablus. Turkish special forces units also were operating along the border, CNN Turk reported. 
 
 Read More ||||| Major campaign – coordinated with Syria rebels – aims to seize Isis-held town of Jarablus and contain expansion of Kurdish militias in area 
 
 Turkey has launched a major military intervention in Syria, sending tanks and warplanes across the border in a coordinated campaign with Syrian opposition fighters, who seized an Islamic State-held village in the area in the first hours of fighting. 
 
 
 
 The operation, called Euphrates Shield, has a dual purpose: to dislodge Isis from Jarablus, its last major redoubt on the 500-mile border, and to contain the expansion of Kurdish militias in northern Syria. 
 
 Turkish tanks crossed the Syrian border as artillery and fighter jets pounded the militants in an operation backed by the US-led coalition. The incursion also opened corridors for Syrian opposition fighters backed by Turkey, who mounted an assault in the area. 
 
 Syrian rebels clashing with Isis fighters seized Kaklijah, Turkish military sources said. There were no immediate details about casualty figures. 
 
 The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said violent clashes were taking place between Turkish-backed opposition fighters and Isis in the area surrounding Jarablus. 
 
 “We are determined to clear Daesh [Isis] from the border,” said the foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, at a press conference on Wednesday. 
 
 The operation marks the first time Ankara’s ground forces have ventured into Syria, with the exception of a brief operation early last year to rescue the tomb of an ancestor of the founder of the Ottoman empire. 
 
 
 
 Turkey said it had hit 81 targets in northern Syria with F-16 warplanes and had also shelled Isis positions. 
 
 Turkey tells border town to evacuate due to skirmish with Isis Read more 
 
 “At 4am this morning, operations started in the north of Syria against terror groups which constantly threaten our country,” Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said in a speech in Ankara, adding that the operation would target both Isis and Kurdish militants. 
 
 The government in Ankara said the operation was an act of self-defence, in response to Isis shelling of Turkish border towns and suicide bombings and attacks targeting Turkish nationals. The bombing of a wedding in Gaziantep over the weekend killed more than 50 people, many of them children, and Isis-linked militants have carried out attacks in Ankara and Istanbul, including one at Atatürk airport. 
 
 It also billed it as an operation that would stem the flow of foreign fighters, who make up a significant contingent of Isis, to Syria, and the flight of refugees from the war-torn country. 
 
 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Turkish tanks and members of the Free Syrian Army pass the Syrian border. Photograph: Sedat Suna/EPA 
 
 “The operation comes in response to terrorist attacks on Turkish soil and artillery fire by Daesh militants in Syria on targets inside Turkey,” the state-run Anadolu news agency said. “The operation is in line with the country’s rights to self-defence borne out of international treaties and a mandate given to the armed forces by the Turkish parliament.” 
 
 The interior minister, Efkan Ala, said the response was Turkey’s “most legitimate right” and that his country could not be a “mere spectator” amid the intensifying threat by Isis. 
 
 The airstrikes were the first by Turkey, a Nato member, in Syria since November, when its fighter jets shot down a Russian warplane that had strayed into Turkish airspace, leading to a collapse of relations with Moscow that lasted until a rapprochement in July. Last week, the Turkish prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, said his country would take a more “active” role in the war in Syria, which has driven more than 2 million refugees into Turkey. 
 
 The US vice-president, Joe Biden, was due to arrive in Ankara on Wednesday morning, hours after the launch of the operation. Relations between the two allies have been strained since an attempted coup last month that aimed to overthrow Erdoğan, who accuses a US-based cleric, Fethullah Gülen, of masterminding the plot and is seek ing his extradition. 
 
 Relations have also deteriorated over American backing of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which has expanded its sphere of influence in northern Syria as it conquered vast tracks of land from Isis with the backing of American air power. Ankara considers the YPG as the Syrian arm of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK), which is fighting an insurgency against the government and is a designated terrorist group, and considers Kurdish expansionism on its border a threat to national security. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Turkish armoured vehicle patrols near the Turkish-Syria border. Photograph: Sedat Suna/EPA 
 
 If rebel forces backed by Turkey take control of Jarablus, they would limit the westward expansion of the Kurdish autonomous zone, which Ankara also says poses a threat to Syria’s territorial integrity. 
 
 Turkey’s latest campaign is a development that underscores both the complexity and the stakes involved in Syria’s war, which has drawn in the region’s powers, laid much of the country to waste and forced a reshifting of longstanding alliances. While defeating Isis has long been the paramount American obsession in Syria, Turkey sees the departure of its president, Bashar al-Assad, as a necessary condition for peace talks, and rejects the idea of a Kurdish statelet on its borders. 
 
 
 
 • This article was amended on 25 August 2016. An earlier version of the caption on the third picture referred to “Turkish tanks”.
– If you needed further proof of just how convoluted the situation in Syria is these days, look no further than Wednesday's visit by Joe Biden to Turkey. The main point of his trip didn't directly involve Syria—he was there to try to ease tensions with Ankara, which blames the US for playing a role in a failed coup attempt last month. But the visit coincided with a US-backed Turkish military offensive into Syria against the Islamic State, and that's where things get complicated. Coverage of the two developments: At a press conference, Biden insisted that the US "had no knowledge beforehand of what was to befall you on July 15,” referring to the coup attempt. "Turkey has the United States' unwavering support," he added. The Wall Street Journal. But that support does not involve quickly extraditing the man Turks blame for the coup, Fethullah Gulen, a cleric living in Pennsylvania. "We have no, no, no, no interest whatsoever in protecting anyone who has done harm to an ally, but we need to meet legal standard requirement under our law," said Biden, per USA Today. He urged patience; lawyers from the Justice Department are working with Turkish lawyers on the extradition request. Hours earlier, Turkish tanks rolled across the border into Syria in a bid to oust ISIS militants from the border town of Jarablus, a key site in that it's last big town held by ISIS on the Syria-Turkey border. The Guardian. US airstrikes backed the mission, given that the US and Turkey share the goal of defeating ISIS. But Turkey had a dual purpose: to knock back ISIS and Syrian Kurds who were threatening to take over the town. Those Kurds are US allies in the ISIS fight, but Turkey considers them a threat because a Kurd-controlled border town could inflame Turkey's own Kurdish population. The New York Times. In the end, Turkey-backed militants, not the Kurds, appeared to have taken control of the town, reports CNN. (Biden had publicly warned the Syrian Kurds to hold back or risk losing US support elsewhere, notes the Times.) Syria, meanwhile, is also fighting ISIS, but it objected to the invasion as a breach of its sovereignty. It views the Turkey-backed militants as terrorists as well. ArmenPress.am.