‘No one should be disturbed by this’

Erdogan said the Turkish forces’ push into Afrin would stretch further east, to the Syrian Kurdish town of Manbij, and toward the border with Iraq “until no terrorist is left.”

Erdogan’s latest comments appeared to be in defiance of the United States, which has urged Turkey to keep its campaign in Syria “limited in scope and duration” and to focus on ending the war. Erdogan said the Turkish forces’ push into Afrin would stretch further east, to the Syrian Kurdish town of Manbij, and toward the border with Iraq “until no terrorist is left.”

Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish forces, known as the People’s Protection Units or YPG, as a terrorist group because of their purported links to Kurdish insurgents within Turkey’s own border. A senior official for the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Syrian fighters spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG, said any wider Turkish assault would face an "appropriate response". Erdogan said this week that Turkish forces would sweep Kurdish fighters from the length of Syrian border and could push all the way east to the frontier with Iraq, a move that would risk a possible confrontation with U.S. forces allied to the Kurds. The agreement, confirmed to The Associated Press by opposition official Ahmad Ramadan, is contingent on Russia compelling the government to allow aid flow to the suburbs, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group. BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on the conflict in Syria (all times local):

The Turkish military has said that two Turkish soldiers and two allied Syrian opposition fighters were killed in a military offensive against a Kurdish-held enclave in northern Syria.
President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says the Afrin offensive, as announced, is now to turn east, towards Manbij and the border with Iraq.