Erdogan expects support from Syria in Turkey’s battle with PKK

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(Reuters) -Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that Syria’s new leadership is determined to root out separatists there, as Ankara said its military had “neutralised” 32 members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, in the country.

A rebellion by groups close to Turkey ousted Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad last month. Since then, Turkey-backed Syrian forces have occasionally clashed in the north with U.S-backed Kurdish forces that Ankara deems terrorists.

“With the revolution in Syria… the hopes of the separatist terrorist organization hit a wall,” Erdogan told his party’s provincial congress in Trabzon.

“The new administration in Syria is showing an extremely determined stance in preserving the country’s territorial integrity and unitary structure,” he said.

“The end of the terrorist organization is near. There is no option left other than to surrender their weapons, abandon terrorism, and dissolve the organization. They will face Turkey’s iron fist,” Erdogan added.

The defence ministry separately announced the armed forces’ operation in northern Syria that it said had “neutralized” – a term that usually means killed – the 32 PKK members. It said Turkey’s military had also “neutralized” four PKK members in northern Iraq, where the militants are based.

(Reporting by Canan Sevgili; Writing by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Mark Potter and Jan Harvey)