Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday in Ankara that Turkey is determined to strike the PKK's Syrian offshoot People's Protection Units (YPG) if the terrorist group stands on Turkey's way in the operation to free northern Syrian city of Manbij from the yoke of terror.

Cavusoglu said that the YPG is as dangerous and hostile as the IS group for Turkey, and that the country will never allow the terrorist group to unite its scattered cantons in northern Syria, referring to the YPG's aim to link up its Afrin Canton in northwestern Syria with the bulk of the territory it occupies in northeastern Syria.

In regards to the operation to free Syria's Raqqa city from IS terrorists, Cavusoglu noted that the U.S. seemed to be undecided and disoriented for the time being.

Turkey reiterated many times that it cannot tolerate the presence of an independent terrorist state on its Syrian border.

Operation Euphrates Shield was launched August 24, 2016, to clear Turkey's Syrian borders from terrorist groups, including the IS and the YPG.

In the meantime, Turkey asked several times the U.S. to not cooperate with the YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) against IS, reminding that a terrorist group cannot be fought with another terrorist group.

The U.S., continuing to run roughshod over the interests of its NATO ally, has so far dismissed the calls to cease its collaboration with the YPG terrorists, the Syrian affiliate of the PKK which is officially listed as a terrorist group by the U.S.

On several occasions, the U.S. pledged Turkey that the YPG will leave Manbij and return on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River; however, the promise has so far never materialized.