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Erdogan Warns No Place for 'Terrorist' Groups in Syria

This handout photograph taken and released by Turkish Presidency Press Office on January 7, 2025, shows Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) shaking hands with Prime minister of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Region Masrour Barzani (L) prior to their meeting at the Presidential Complex in Ankara. (Photo by Turkish Presidency Press Office / AFP)
This handout photograph taken and released by Turkish Presidency Press Office on January 7, 2025, shows Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) shaking hands with Prime minister of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Region Masrour Barzani (L) prior to their meeting at the Presidential Complex in Ankara. (Photo by Turkish Presidency Press Office / AFP)
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Erdogan Warns No Place for 'Terrorist' Groups in Syria

This handout photograph taken and released by Turkish Presidency Press Office on January 7, 2025, shows Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) shaking hands with Prime minister of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Region Masrour Barzani (L) prior to their meeting at the Presidential Complex in Ankara. (Photo by Turkish Presidency Press Office / AFP)
This handout photograph taken and released by Turkish Presidency Press Office on January 7, 2025, shows Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) shaking hands with Prime minister of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Region Masrour Barzani (L) prior to their meeting at the Presidential Complex in Ankara. (Photo by Turkish Presidency Press Office / AFP)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said there was no place for "terrorist organizations" in Syria under its new leaders, in a warning regarding Kurdish forces there.

The fall of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad last month raised the prospect of Türkiye intervening in the country against Kurdish forces accused by Ankara of links to armed separatists.

Erdogan's comment came during a meeting in Ankara with the prime minister of Iraq's Kurdish region, Masrour Barzani, the Turkish leader's office said in a statement.

Erdogan told Barzani that Türkiye was working to prevent the ousting of Assad in neighboring Syria from causing new instability in the region.

There is no place for "terrorist organizations or affiliated elements in the future of the new Syria," Erdogan said.

Ankara accuses one leading Kurdish force in Syria, the People's Protection Units (YPG), of links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Türkiye.

The PKK has fought a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state and is banned as a terrorist organization by Ankara and its Western allies.

The Turkish military regularly launches strikes against Kurdish fighters in Syria and neighboring Iraq, accusing them of PKK links.

On Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said: "The elimination of the PKK/YPG is only a matter of time."

He cited a call by Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group has long had ties with Türkiye, for the Kurdish-led forces to be integrated into Syria's national army.

The United States has backed the YPG in its fight against ISIS, which has been largely crushed in its former Syrian stronghold.

But Fidan warned that Western countries should not use the threat of IS as "a pretext to strengthen the PKK".

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MSF Suspends Operations at Key Hospital in Sudan's Capital

FILE - South Sudanese people sit outside a nutrition clinic at a transit center in Renk, South Sudan, on May 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)
FILE - South Sudanese people sit outside a nutrition clinic at a transit center in Renk, South Sudan, on May 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)
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MSF Suspends Operations at Key Hospital in Sudan's Capital

FILE - South Sudanese people sit outside a nutrition clinic at a transit center in Renk, South Sudan, on May 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)
FILE - South Sudanese people sit outside a nutrition clinic at a transit center in Renk, South Sudan, on May 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)

Medical aid agency MSF said on Friday it has been forced to suspend its activities at one of the few remaining hospitals in southern Khartoum due to repeated attacks, cutting off yet another lifeline for those who remain in the Sudanese capital.
War has been raging in Sudan since April 2023, sparked by a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule, triggering the world's largest displacement and hunger crisis.
The hospital, which lies in territory controlled by the RSF, helped treat the victims of frequent airstrikes by the Sudanese Armed Forces, as well as hundreds of malnourished women and children in an area where two neighborhoods have been judged at risk of famine, reported Reuters.
"In the 20 months MSF teams have worked alongside hospital staff and volunteers, Bashair Hospital has experienced repeated incidents of armed fighters entering the hospital with weapons and threatening medical staff, often demanding fighters be treated before other patients," MSF said in a statement.
"Despite extensive engagements with all stakeholders, these attacks have continued in recent months. MSF has now taken the very difficult decision to suspend all medical activities in the hospital."
The fighting in Sudan has cut off up to 80% of hospitals in conflict areas, where millions who cannot afford to escape the violence remain. Civilians face frequent air and artillery fire and hunger as supplies are blocked by both warring parties and prices skyrocket.
Medical facilities, including MSF-supported ones that have suspended operations, have frequently come under attack by RSF soldiers demanding treatment or looting supplies. Bashair Hospital has served more than 25,000 people, MSF said, including 9,000 hurt by blasts, gunshot wounds, and other violence.
"Sometimes dozens of people arrived at the hospital at the same time after shelling or airstrikes on residential areas and markets," MSF said in the statement, citing an incident on Sunday where an airstrike one kilometer away drove 50 people to the emergency room, 12 of them already dead.