“Turkey will defend its rights in the Aegean and Mediterranean seas, will build the Istanbul Canal, and will merge its security lines across border,” Erdogan said Saturday in the western province of Canakkale.

Turkey aims to capture land inside war-torn Syria, just across its border, to control an area that can be used to keep back YPG militants.

Turkey views the YPG as a terrorist group affiliated with Kurdish separatist group the PKK, which the Turkish military has been battling for more than three decades.

Turkey deployed hundreds more troops in northern Syria in preparation for a long-suspended offensive against American-backed Kurdish forces, two officials told Bloomberg in late October, after Erdogan signaled he was planning a new campaign in the wake of a spate of attacks by Kurdish YPG forces.

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