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Turkey Says Ending Involvement in Syria

Seven months after Turkey launched what it called Operation Euphrates Shield to clear threats it saw to Turkey from Syrian territory, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım declared an end to his country’s military intervention in Syria on Wednesday. The announcement comes after the National Security Council of Turkey proclaimed that Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria had been successfully completed. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was present at the meeting when the announcement was made.In an interview with Turkish television channel NTV, Yıldırım said the operation in Syria was a success and further operations would be conducted under different names. It was not clear if that meant there would be future Turkish operations in Syria. When Turkey first announced the operation in Syria in 2016, Erdogan said the goal was to end repeated attacks on Turkey from within Syrian territory, as well as to uproot ISIS and the Kurdish PYD, which Turkey sees as a terrorist organization. The announcement could pave the way for wider involvement of the PYD militias in the fight against Islamic State in Raqqa.