Prime minister Binali Yıldırım says he wants to prevent the war-torn country being divided along ethnic lines

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Turkey will take a more active role in addressing the conflict in Syria in the next six months to prevent the war-torn country being divided along ethnic lines, the prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, has said.

Yıldırım also said that while the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, could have a role in the interim leadership, he must play no part in its future.

Syria’s five-year conflict has taken on an ethnic dimension, with Kurdish groups carving out their own regions and periodically battling groups from Syria’s Arab majority, whose priority is to overthrow Assad.

Turkey fears the strengthening of Kurdish militant groups in Syria will further embolden its own Kurdish insurgency, which flared anew following the collapse of a ceasefire between militants and the state last year.

“Turkey will be more active in the Syria issue in the coming six months as a regional player. This means to not allow Syria to be divided on any ethnic base; for Turkey this is crucial,” Yıldırım said.

On Friday, Syrian Kurdish authorities evacuated thousands of civilians from Kurdish areas of Hasaka following Syrian government airstrikes, the Kurdish YPG militia said.

The fighting this week in Hasaka, which is divided into zones of Kurdish and Syrian government control, marks the most violent confrontation between the Kurdish YPG militia and Damascus in the civil war.

It came a week after Turkey and Russia, Assad’s strongest military backer, repaired ties following Turkey’s downing of a Russian jet late last year.

The YPG and Syrian government forces had mostly left each other to their own devices in the conflict, during which Kurdish groups have exploited the collapse of state control to establish autonomy across much of the country’s north.

The YPG is a key part of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which are at the heart of Washington’s military campaign against Islamic Stateand last week seized the northern town of Manbij from militants.

Despite the intensified military involvement of world powers, including the former cold war foes, Yıldırım said he was optimistic that Iran, the Gulf Arab states, Russia and the United States could work jointly to find a solution.

In Syria’s devastated Aleppo city, however, more than 300 civilians have been killed in a three-week surge of fighting and bombardment, a monitoring group said on Saturday.

The battle for Syria’s second city has killed 333 civilians since 31 July, when rebels launched a major push to break a government siege of districts under their control, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The toll includes 165 civilians – among them 49 children – killed in opposition fire on the city’s government-held western districts.

Another 168 civilians died in Russian and regime airstrikes and shelling on its rebel-controlled eastern neighbourhoods, the observatory said.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s parliament approved a reconciliation agreement signed with Israel in June that has brought to an end a six-year rift between the two regional powers, Yıldırım said.

Relations between the two countries crumbled after Israeli marines stormed a Turkish ship in May 2010 to enforce a naval blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, killing 10 Turks on board.

Israel, which had already offered its apologies for the raid, agreed under the deal to pay out $20m (£15m) to the bereaved and wounded in return for Turkey dropping outstanding legal claims. Both countries are to appoint ambassadors under an agreement that is partly driven by the prospect of lucrative Mediterranean gas deals.

The accord, signed on 28 June, was a rare rapprochement in the divided Middle East, also driven by mutual fears over growing security risks. Two weeks afterwards, more than 240 people were killed in an attempted coup in Turkey.

Under the deal, the naval blockade of Gaza, which Ankara had wanted lifted, remains in force, although humanitarian aid can continue to be transferred to Gaza via Israeli ports.

Israel says the Gaza blockade is needed to curb arms-smuggling by Hamas, the Islamist group that last fought a war with Israel in 2014.

Hamas, which won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, is designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union.