Turkey says military will enter Syria 'shortly'

A Turkish army tank.
(Image credit: Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images)

The Turkish military, supported by the Free Syrian Army, will cross the border into Syria "shortly" in an attempt to take over areas now held by Kurdish fighters, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's communications director Fahrettin Altun said Tuesday night.

The Kurds have "two options," Altun tweeted. "They can defect or we will have [to] stop them from disrupting our counter-ISIS efforts." The Kurds are U.S. allies, and their Syrian Democratic Forces helped drive the Islamic State out of Syria; they are now guarding about 12,000 ISIS prisoners.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.