SpaceWar.com reports: “Turkey’s military is ready to ‘support’ Syria in its battle with Kurdish fighters in the northwestern city of Aleppo if Damascus asks for help, a defence ministry official said Thursday.

And Turkey’s top diplomat said Ankara had been working ‘intensively’ with Syrian and American officials in a bid to end the unrest.

Deadly clashes erupted this week between Syrian government forces and the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Defence Forces (SDF) after the two sides failed to reach a year-end deadline to merge the Kurdish fighters into the main Damascus military.

In Ankara, the defence ministry official framed the clashes as a ‘counter-terror operation’, saying Turkey fully backed ‘Syria’s fight against terrorist organisations’.

‘Should Syria request assistance, Turkey will provide the necessary support,’ he said, echoing a long-standing offer by Ankara to extend military support to its allies in Damascus’s new Islamist government…”