According to the president, Turkey did not abandon its plan to establish a 30-kilometer (19 miles) security line on the country's southern border.
"I hope that soon we will unify the rings of this security belt by clearing the last areas where terrorists remain in Syria," Erdogan told foreign ambassadors in Ankara.
In October 2019, Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring, crossing the Syrian frontier into eastern Syria in what Ankara called Operation Peace Spring, driving more than 300,000 Kurds from a 20-mile-deep strip along the border in order to halt the movement of Kurdish groups across the border. Another Kurdish militant group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), has fought against the Turkish government in eastern Turkey for decades and is closely allied with the YPG in Syria.