Turkey downs unidentified drone on Syria border

ISTANBUL — Turkey's air force on Sunday said it downed an unidentified drone on the Syrian border after it breached Turkish air space six times, the defence ministry said.

"An unmanned aerial vehicle which violated our air space six times [on Saturday]... was downed by two of our F-16s which took off from Incirlik" air base in southern Turkey, the defence ministry said, sharing pictures of the downed drone.

The ministry said it was not known who the drone belonged to but said it was grounded at 13:24 (10:24 GMT) local time.

"The wreck of the drone was found at the Cildiroba base" by the Turkish gendarmerie in the Kilis province near the Syrian border, the ministry said.

The Turkish military conducted two offensives in northern Syria against Kurdish militia forces in 2016 and 2018.

The two NATO allies, Turkey and the United States, reached a deal last month to establish a safe zone between the Turkish border and Syrian areas east of the Euphrates River controlled by the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

The United States views the YPG as a close ally in the fight against the Daesh terror group.

But Ankara says the YPG is a terrorist militia linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984.

The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara, the US and the European Union.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly threatened to launch a cross-border offensive against the YPG if the plans to realise a safe zone with Washington fail by the end of this month.

Erdogan has said up to 3 million Syrian refugees could be returned to a "safe zone" it is seeking to establish in northern Syria.

The country is already playing home to more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees — the highest number in the world — and there have been signs of a public backlash over their presence after eight long years of war in its neighbour to the south.