TEV-DEM is the ruling coalition of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, popularly known as Rojava. Its largest constituent party is the Democratic Union Party (PYD).

On Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara would launch a military operation into northern Syria to create a safe zone inside Syria’s northeastern border with Turkey that would be cleared of the People's Protection Units (YPG), which is the armed wing of the PYD.

At the moment, there are a number of US troops on the ground in northeastern Syria, but Khalil said that they would have to leave if the US decided to allow Turkish planes to use the air space over Syira currently controlled by US.

General Commander of the Women's Protection Unit (YPJ) Nowruz Ahmed said that any attack from Turkey will be responded to and that Ankara's actions are blocking the way to peaceful resolution of conflict in the area. The YPJ is also connected to the PYD.

The United States and Turkey have been engaging in tense negotiations over the past several weeks over Turkish demands to create a “safe zone” or buffer along the Turkish-Syrian border. Lately, however, Turkish leaders have said that they are losing patience with the process and are prepared to act unilaterally.

“In terms of the safe zone negotiations, the minister took a pretty tough position, but we’ve continued talking at various levels, including military-to-military. The Turks want a deeper zone than the one that we think makes sense,” Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat IS Ambassador James Jeffrey said during a press conference on August 1.

“But we’re willing to work with them on this. We think that this is a deal that we can sell to the people of northeast Syria. That’s very important,” he added.

Any armed incursion by the Turkish military is expected to provoke an armed response from the YPG and fighting is likely to produce a new wave of displacement in an already fractured and unstable area.

Reporter’s code: 50101