Turkey launched an investigation on Tuesday after a Turkish flag was lowered from its flagpole at the Turkey-Syria border, an incident officials described as a provocation as tensions rose along the frontier.
Burhanettin Duran, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s communications director, blamed supporters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) for the incident and said authorities would identify those responsible and take judicial and administrative action.
Duran called the incident an “open provocation” targeting Turkey’s peace and its campaign against what it calls terrorism.
The incident took place following pro-Kurdish protests in the border town of Nusaybin in Turkey’s southeastern Mardin province over fighting in northeastern Syria, where Syria’s transitional government has pushed into areas long controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Turkey backs Damascus’s military campaign and considers the SDF an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies. The SDF has been the main US partner in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.