ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - New light has been shed on what exactly was said in US President Barack Obama's 80-minute phone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday. Sources from the Turkish president's office and other Turkish diplomatic sources have told Hurriyet news that Erdogan said he would not stop bombarding Syrian Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) positions over the border until and unless a ceasefire in the Syrian war is implemented. "If (Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad, Russia and the YPG abide by the agreement reached in Munich, then artillery fires will be ceased," Erdogan said in response to Obama's call for Ankara to halt its cross-border shelling. Turkey is attempting to prevent the YPG from advancing and closing off the remaining northwestern Syrian frontier with Syria. Erdogan claimed that if the town of "Azaz falls, Turkey will face a serious migration and security problem." Erdogan and his government have been adamantly opposed to the Syrian Kurds closing off that remaining stretch of border since it would put the YPG along the entirety of the Syrian frontier with Turkey. "Our artillery fires have this aim and will continue," Erdogan said, "We will never sit back and watch formation of such an illegitimate entity at our borders."
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