by Our Foreign Desk

ANKARA and Washington were close to agreement yesterday on a Turkish offensive against Islamic State (Isis) in northern Syria.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that Turkey and the US had no plans to send ground troops into Syria but that they had agreed to provide air cover to “moderate” Syrian rebel groups.

He was speaking the day after Turkey was accused of shelling a village held by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia, lending further weight to accusations that the real target of Ankara’s offensive is Kurdish groups at home and abroad.

An anonymous US official said yesterday that the creation of an “Islamic State-free zone” in a strip of territory along the Turkish-Syrian border would ensure greater security and stability in the region.

Turkey had requested a meeting of its fellow Nato members the day before over claimed threats to its security from Isis.

However, the official said that any joint military efforts with Turkey would not include the imposition of a no-fly zone.

While the US government has frequently mooted a complete invasion of Syrian air space, such action has been blocked by Russia.

Despite this, a US-led coalition of air forces — including “embedded” RAF personnel deployed contrary to the will of Parliament — has been waging a bombing ­campaign against Isis in both Iraq and Syria.

Turkey’s first overt intervention in Syria’s civil war came last week, when air strikes were launched in response to an Isis attack on a Turkish border post.

Ankara has been accused in the past of supplying arms to Isis to build it up as a counterweight to the YPG, which is allied to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) operating in Turkey and northern Iraq.

The YPG has made great advances against Isis in northern Syria, but Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu questioned its motives.

Using the Arabic acronym for Isis, he said: “There is no difference between the PKK and Daesh. You can’t say that the PKK is better because it is fighting Daesh.”

He claimed the PKK was fighting Isis “for power, not for peace, not for security.”