by James Tweedie

TURKISH President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denied that Syrian Kurdish fighters were withdrawing yesterday, but said his troops had seized swathes of territory.

Mr Erdogan said Turkish forces and allied Syrian extremist factions had cleared the Kurdish YPG militia and Islamic State (Isis) from a 150-square-mile area of north-eastern Aleppo province around Jarabulus.

But he dismissed US claims that its allies in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had heeded appeals to abandon the town of Manbij and withdraw east of the River Euphrates.

“At the moment, they are saying the YPG has crossed,” Mr Erdogan said. “We are saying no they didn’t. The proof depends on our own observation.”

The SDF, mainly composed of Kurdish YPG fighters, liberated Manbij from Isis in July after months of fighting in which hundreds of its soldiers were killed.

In the YPG border stronghold of Kobane to the east, Turkish soldiers fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse some 400 people protesting against Ankara’s building of a border wall between what the separatists call neighbouring regions of Kurdistan.

One 17-year-old was killed and 80 people were injured.

Al-Masdar News reported that Arab SDF faction Liwaa al-Tahrir had clashed with YPG forces after quitting the coalition over alleged Kurdish chauvinism by the YPG.

In Turkey’s south-eastern Hakkari province, one soldier was killed yesterday in an attack by suspected Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) guerillas, allies of the YPG.

The Anadolu news agency said troops “neutralised 57 terrorists, including 27 killed.”

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said there would be no talks with the PKK, but announced an expansion of the network of village guards recruited from Kurds loyal to the Turkish state.

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