"Operation Euphrates Shield has been successful and is finished. Any operation following this one will have a different name," the BBC reported Prime Minister Binali Yildirim as saying after a four-hour meeting of the National Security Council at the Presidential Complex in Ankara that was chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkey has been backing the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which captured al-Bab from ISIS last month.
Erdogan said in February that he does not want to see Turkish troops lose momentum in al-Bab.
“After removing Daesh, the YPG [Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units] and the PYD [Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party] from the region and getting Daesh [ISIS] out of Raqqa, it will be too much of a luxury for us to stay there,” Erdogan said. “But it is currently too early to talk about such issues.
“There will be no stop after al-Bab. There might be a problem of communication there. The capital of Daesh is not al-Bab, but Raqqa. The ultimate goal is to cleanse a 5,000 square-kilometer area."
After Wednesday’s decision, Yildirim said any other future military operations would be named differently without specifying whether it will pull its troops out from Syria.
"If something threatening our security happens in the future, regarding Daesh or something else, then this will be a new operation. Operation Euphrates Shield has ended, and any other future operations will be named differently,” Yildirim said in an interview with Turkish broadcaster NTV.
Euphrates Shield, by controlling ISIS-held al-Bab, also successfully bisected the Kurdish-controlled areas of Afrin in the northwest and Raqqa.
Russia and the United States’ deployments of ground forces into Afrin and Raqqa, respectively, with the Syrian army to the south in Aleppo, have limited the Turks’ options for conducting its “anti-terrorist” operations.
YPG and Syrian Arab Coalition (SAC) fighters under the umbrella of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have proven to be effective fighting partners for the US-led international coalition to defeat ISIS.
Additionally, in Manbij and in the Raqqa countryside, multi-ethnic military councils have been formed including Kurdish representation.
Turkey considers the YPG to be linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a listed terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union.
Anadolu Agency reported the security council statement added: “Measures that could be taken by our state to protect the rights of our citizens who have faced physical attacks have been discussed.”
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has arrived in Ankara, and is set to meet with Turkish officials on Thursday.
