Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said Ankara and Washington will soon launch “comprehensive” air operations to eradicate ISIS fighters from a zone in northern Syria bordering Turkey, Reuters reported on Monday, August 24th.
Detailed talks between the United States and Turkey on the plans were completed on Sunday and regional allies including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan as well as Britain and France may also take part, Çavuşoğlu said in an interview. “The technical talks [were] concluded yesterday and soon we will start this operation … against Daesh,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL.
The United States and Turkey plan to provide air cover for what Washington judges to be moderate Syrian rebels as part of the operations, which aim to push ISIL from a rectangle of border territory roughly 80 kilometers (50 miles) in length, officials familiar with the plans have said. Diplomats say cutting ISIL’s access to the Turkish border, across which it has been able to bring foreign fighters and supplies, could be a game-changer. US jets have already begun air strikes from Turkish bases in advance of the campaign.
Çavuşoğlu said the operations would also send a message to Bashar al-Assad and help put pressure on his administration to come to the negotiating table and seek a political solution for Syria’s wider war. Ankara has long argued that lasting peace in Syria can only be achieved with Assad’s departure. US officials, meanwhile, have made clear that the focus of the coalition operations will be squarely on pushing back ISIL.
“Our aim should be eradicating Daesh from both Syria and Iraq, otherwise you cannot bring stability and security. … But eliminating the root causes of the situation [in Syria] is also essential, which is the regime,” Çavuşoğlu said.

Diplomatic sources told Reuters on Friday that a second group of rebel fighters trained in Turkey by the US-led coalition could be deployed to Syria within weeks as part of the strategy to push back the ISIL.

“In the second group we have around 100 [fighters],” Çavuşoğlu said, but made clear that the ground forces were only part of the strategy. “The train and equip program [alone] will not be enough to fight Daesh; that is why we agreed with the United States to start joint operations soon,” he added.