Turkey has signaled a desire to have communication with Damascus to avoid direct confrontation with pro-regime forces over Kurdish enclave of Afrin, a senior official said on Wednesday.
“Intelligence officials may establish direct or indirect contact when it is required to solve certain problems under extraordinary conditions,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan‘s spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin said.
This does not amount to official contact with the Syrian regime, he added with a caveat.
On Tuesday, regime-allied forces were deployed in Afrin to support Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) against the Turkish troops and its rebel allies.
Turkish President Erdogan initially said the regime forces were forced to step back from the city after Turkish artillery shelling. But Syrian Kurds shared videos featuring a convoy of regime militia entering Afrin.
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