MESOP TACTICAL STATEMENTS : Turkey Says New Counter-ISIS Plan Reached, U.S. Denies
The United States and Turkey have agreed to a plan to launch “comprehensive” air operations beginning “soon,” according to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, though the United States says talks are ongoing. Cavusoglu told Reuters that the new joint offensive is designed to flush the Islamic State from a proposed safe zone in Syria along the Turkish border and said other nations in the international coalition fighting the Islamic State have been briefed on the plan and may participate. The second tranche of U.S.-trained Syrian rebels will participate in the operation, but Cavusoglu stressed that they are just one part of the plan. He also noted that Kurdish militias, which are operating in the safe zone, should not have a major role in controlling the area because they are “not fighting for the territorial integrity or political unity of Syria. This is unacceptable.”
Obama Administration Press Secretary Josh Earnest denied that the United States and Turkey had reached an agreement on a join counter-Islamic State plan. Those negotiations are still happening, he said, but no plan has been finalized.