ANAKARA – *Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to furtherexpand military operations against Kurdish militants in Syria to theeastern parts of the Arab country, even threatening to send troops tonorthern Iraq if Baghdad could not clear the region of the militants.*

Speaking in Ankara a day after Turkish forces and their allies stormed andcaptured the northwestern Syrian city of Afrin, Erdogan said on Monday thathis country’s military would target the Syrian city of Manbij, as well asAyn al-Arab or Kobani, and towns along the border to the east of theEuphrates River.

“Now we will continue this process until we entirely eliminate thiscorridor, including in Manbij, Ayn al-Arab, Tal Abyad, Ra’s al-Ayn andQamishli,” Erdogan said in his speech.

Indicating that there was no plan for the Turkish army to call off thecross-border “Operation Olive Branch” against members of the US-backedPeople’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria, Erdogan described the taking ofAfrin as merely a “comma” and warned of a surprise attack on Kurdishmilitant-held areas in northern Iraq.

Ankara views the YPG as the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party(PKK) militant group that has been fighting for an autonomous region insideTurkey since 1984.

During the speech on Monday, the Turkish president said his troops couldcross into Iraq to drive out the PKK from the region of Sinjar in thecountry’s north if Baghdad government was reluctant to oust the Kurdishmilitants from the area.

“If (Baghdad) cannot, we may turn up in Sinjar suddenly one night and cleanup the PKK there,” Erdogan said.

Ankara launched the Afrin offensive on January 20 after the United Statessaid it sought to create a 30,000-strong force near the Turkish border inSyria with the help of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)militant group, which is mainly comprised of YPG forces.