Turkey vows to take necessary measures to secure borders

ANKARA, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's top security council said late Tuesday that stationing Turkish forces in Syria's Afrin and western Aleppo for monitoring purposes could help enhance security and peace, pledging Turkey will take every necessary measure to secure its borders.

A written statement was released after the National Security Council meeting chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in capital Ankara.

Turkish Armed Forces "was successfully continuing its observer mission" in Syria's Idlib de-escalation zone, read the statement.

The council vowed that Turkey will take every necessary measure in the Turkey-Syria border area to ensure its own security against terror groups.

"The Democratic Union Party (PYD)'s efforts to change the demographic structure of Syria and acquire land through ethnic cleansing and other violations of international law and humanitarian rights are unacceptable," it said.

Turkey considers PYD and its armed wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG) , to be the Syrian affiliates of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a terrorist organization listed by Turkey, the U.S., and the EU.

However, the U.S. has supported the PKK and the PYD as its ally on the ground in combating Islamic States (IS) in Syria.

The statement also commented on the recent incident during a NATO drill in Norway involving a civilian Norwegian official who depicted the Turkish president as an "enemy collaborator."

"It is expected that investigations by Norwegian and NATO authorities would be expanded to include the echelons responsible," it said, adding that developments linked to the incident would be followed closely. Enditem