Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the aim of the military operation in northeastern Syria is clear and he is not worried about sanctions.
He said the aim of the operation in Syria was to drive Kurdish fighters more than 32 kilometers inside Syria, adding that he told US President Donald Trump that Turkey would not negotiate with terrorists and would never declare a ceasefire in northern Syria.
On the city of Manbij, Erdogan said that the entry of the Syrian army is not negative, but the militants should not stay there, stressing that talks with the United States and Russia on the cities of Kobane and Manbij in Syria are continuing.
In Russia, the Kremlin said that President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed, by telephone, the situation in Syria, and stressed the importance of preventing clashes between the Syrian and Turkish armies.
The Kremlin said Putin and Erdogan had reaffirmed their commitment to ensuring Syrian territorial integrity. He said that the Russian and Turkish presidents expressed support for the continuation of the political settlement in Syria and the next meeting of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, and that Erdogan accepted Putin's invitation to visit Russia in the next few days.
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For his part, Russian special envoy to Syria Alexander Lavrentiyev that his country will not allow a military clash between Turkish and Syrian forces in northern Syria.
Lavrentiyev, in press statements that Russia opposes the Turkish military presence in Syria on a permanent basis, and said that the Turkish military operation may change the balance between communities in northern Syria.
He said that securing the Syrian-Turkish border is possible only through the deployment of Syrian government forces along the border.
But Lavrentiyev noted that the dialogue between Turkey and Syria is continuing continuously, and is conducted through the Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs and intelligence services.