The Syrian government has condemned a Turkish attack on U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in northern Syria.
The Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that the airstrikes the day before violated international law and infringed on Syrian sovereignty. It called on the U.N. to condemn the attack.
The Syrian Democratic Forces, which controls large swathes of Syria’s border with Turkey, says 20 of its fighters were killed in the air raids. No Syrian government forces were targeted in the attack.
The SDF and the Syrian government have largely avoided confrontation over the course of the complex civil war. The SDF is the most effective ground force battling ISIS in Syria.
Turkey says it targeted fighters affiliated with an outlawed Kurdish group waging an insurgency inside Turkey.
Turkey claims mortar attacks
Turkey’s military says two of its military border outposts were attacked with mortar fire from Syria but there were no casualties.
The military says it immediately retaliated to the attacks on the posts in the town of Hassa, in Hatay province, on Wednesday.
It says the first outpost was attack from Syria’s Afrin region, an area controlled by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters whom Turkey considers to be terrorists because of alleged links to Turkey’s outlawed Kurdish rebels.
The military says the second attack came three hours later and originated from an area under the control of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.
The attacks came a day after Turkey conducted air strikes on Kurdish rebel positions in Syria and Iraq. At least 20 Syrian Kurdish fighters were killed.
Kurds want air cover
U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces say they want the international coalition to provide air cover over northern Syria, to protect them from Turkish and Syrian government air raids.
Ilham Ahmad, the co-president of the Syrian Democratic Council which also includes representatives of Arab factions in northern Syria, said on Wednesday that their local commanders have asked the United States to bar Turkish and Syrian jets from flying over Rojava, the predominantly Kurdish-area in northern Syria that is under the Kurds’ autonomous rule.
The SDC is the political arm of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the U.S.’s main partner in the struggle to defeat the Islamic State group in northern Syria.
Turkey says one of the Kurdish groups represented in the SDF is an extension of an outlawed insurgent Kurdish group within its own borders.
Turkish air strikes killed 20 Syrian Kurdish fighters affiliated with SDF in airstrikes that Ankara conducted early on Tuesday morning on Kurdish rebel positions in Syria and Iraq.
