Ankara and Damascus may conduct a joint military operation in Syria against Kurdish rebel forces if they refuse to lay down their arms, a Turkish newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the matter.The interim Syrian government will urge the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Islamic State* to drop the weapons and join the new Syrian army, the newspaper reported.Turkiye's conflict with the PKK started in 1984 and resumed in 2015. Turkiye launched operations Olive Branch and Peace Spring in Syria in 2018 and 2019, and Operation Claw-Lock in Iraq in 2022 despite protests from Damascus and Baghdad. Ankara, which sees PKK as a terrorist group, insisted that the operations aimed at protecting its borders from security threats posed by Kurdish militia. n18oc_world n18oc_crux
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