February 15, 2016•Update: February 15, 2016
ANKARA
Turkey has received a U.S. State Department announcement on Syrian Kurdish forces with “astonishment”, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday.
Tanju Bilgic's remarks came after U.S. spokesman John Kirby urged Turkey to halt its cross-border artillery fire and called on the terrorist PYD group and its affiliated forces “not to take advantage of a confused situation by seizing new territory”.
"We have received Kirby's statements -- that put its ally Turkey and a terrorist organization in the same equation -- with astonishment," Bilgic told a news conference in Ankara.
Bilgic said that Turkey had protested Kirby's statements harshly and conveyed these thoughts to U.S. officials.
A Turkish border post was hit by mortar fire from Syria on Sunday. The bombardment by PYD forces hit the post in Kilis province and the Turkish military responded with shellfire.
Turkish troops have shelled PYD positions around Azaz in northern Syria since Saturday in response to artillery strikes on Turkey.
The PYD is the Syrian affiliate of the PKK, which is listed as a terror group also by the U.S. and the EU and has targeted Turkish security forces and civilians since 1984.
Azaz -- six kilometers (four miles) from the Turkish border -- has been the scene of recent heavy fighting as the PYD advanced during a Russian-backed Syrian government offensive against opposition forces.
Bilgic said that Turkey had applied its rules of engagement as a result of artillery and fire coming from Syria to Turkey.
Bilgic announced that a border post in Turkey's southern province of Hatay was attacked on Monday and Turkey responded.
He said the reason for the migration from Syria to Turkey was Russian aerial bombardment.
"It is true that numerous Syrians have approached our border after the Aleppo bombardment," he said.
"Twenty thousand people were placed in empty schools in Azaz town. Ten thousand people turned back. Nearly 100,000 people stay in civil society camps beyond the border.
“Almost 7,500 Syrians have entered our country since Nov. 23," Bilgic added.
