WarSclerotic

Turkey will not allow the northern Syrian town of Azaz to fall into the hands of Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and its fighters will face the “harshest reaction” if they approach it again, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said on Monday.

A major offensive supported by Russian bombing and Iranian-backed Shiite militias has brought the Syrian army to within 25 km (15 miles) of the Turkish border. The YPG has exploited the situation, seizing ground from Syrian rebels to extend its presence along the Turkish border.

Turkey is infuriated by the expansion of Kurdish influence in northern Syria, fearing it will encourage separatist ambitions among its own Kurds. The YPG, which Ankara considers to be a terrorist group, controls nearly all of Syria’s frontier with Turkey.

Speaking to reporters on his plane en route to Ukraine, Davutoğlu said YPG fighters would have taken control of rebel-held Azaz and the town of Tal Rifaat further south had it not been for Turkish artillery firing at them over the weekend.

“YPG elements were forced away from around Azaz. If they approach again they will see the harshest reaction. We will not allow Azaz to fall,” Davutoğlu said.

He said Turkey would make the Menagh air base north of the city of Aleppo “unusable” if the YPG, which seized it over the weekend from Syrian insurgents, did not withdraw. He warned the YPG not to move east of the Afrin region or west of the Euphrates River, long a “red line” for Ankara.

Azaz came under heavy fire again on Monday. At least 14 civilians were killed when missiles hit a children’s hospital, a school and other locations, a medic and two residents said.

Syria’s rebels, some backed by the United States, Turkey and their allies, say the YPG is fighting with the Syrian military against them in the five-year-old civil war. The YPG denies this.

Ankara views the YPG as an extension of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Washington, which does not see the YPG as terrorists, supports the group in the fight against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria.

NATO member Turkey is now at risk of being dragged ever deeper into the Syrian conflict. Turkish financial markets including the lira currency were weaker on Monday on fears about the situation.