"We would call on, certainly on the Turks, to not take any actions of that sort,” Naurt said when asked about reports that Turkey is considering an invasion of Afrin. “We want everyone there to keep their eye … on the ball. The focus needs to be on ISIS [Daesh].”
Nauert reiterated that the United States is not creating a border security force in Syria, but rather only trying to ensure that local elements are providing security to liberated areas and blocking Daesh terrorists from escape routes.
Meanwhile, US officials have been in talks with their counterparts in Turkey regarding the conflict in Syria, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Thursday.
"Turkey is well-aligned with the objectives Jordan, ourselves, and regional neighbors have: to really see an end of the conflict and create a whole and sovereign Syria. We have been talking to Turkey as well,” Tillerson said before a meeting with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi in Washington, DC.
On Saturday, the Defense Post news website, citing US military officials, reported that the US-led coalition was training a 30,000-strong force on Syrian territory controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), to maintain border security.
The report angered Turkey, which sees the YPG as an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an armed group that Ankara considers a terrorist organization.
After the report was published, Tillerson on Wednesday denied that the United States had any intention to create a border force in Syria, saying US officials "mispoke" about the training mission.
Turkey has threatened to invade the northwestern Syrian city of Afrin to strangle the US-backed Kurdish "terror army" there unless the United States withdraws its support for the planned force.