Turkish airstrikes in northern Syria on regime-held positions have killed 17 people after overnight clashes between Ankara forces and Kurdish fighters, a non-governmental organization said on Tuesday, as quoted by AFP.

“Seventeen fighters were killed in a Turkish airstrike targeting Syrian regime positions… near the Turkish border” in the village of Jarkali, west of the city of Kobane, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSHR) said.

“It is not known whether they are part of regime forces or Kurdish fighters who control the area,” OSDH director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The official Syrian news agency SANA, citing a military source, confirmed that at least three Syrian soldiers were killed and six were wounded.

“Any attack on the position held by our armed forces will be met with a direct and immediate response on all fronts,” SANA added.

According to the OSDH, heavy fighting broke out on Monday night between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Turkish army, which stepped up shelling after one of its positions on the Turkish side of the border was attacked.

The operation is in progress

Ankara said that a Kurdish attack on Turkish territory caused the death of a soldier.

In response, “13 terrorists were neutralized,” the Turkish Ministry of Defense reported, adding that the operation in the area is ongoing.

The SDF statement stated that “Turkish military aircraft” carried out “12 airstrikes against Syrian army positions located on the border strip west of Kobane”.

The raids resulted in “casualties,” FDS spokesman Farhad Shami said, without giving further details.

According to the FDS, at least 13 of their fighters have been killed by Turkish attacks since July.

Kurdish forces control much of northeastern Syria, a country that has been torn apart since the war began in 2011 and where the situation has been complicated over the years by the intervention of several foreign groups and states such as Turkey.

The conflict has resulted in approximately half a million deaths and millions of displaced persons and refugees.

Syrian regime forces have in recent years moved into areas controlled by Kurdish forces near the border with Turkey as part of deals to end Turkish cross-border offensives against Kurdish militants Ankara considers “terrorists.”

Turkey, which has launched a series of operations in Syria since 2016 against Kurdish forces and the Islamic State jihadist group, has threatened since May to launch a major offensive against the Kurds in northeastern Syria.

Turkey, which backs the rebels, has been fiercely opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since the start of the war. But last week, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu called for reconciliation between the Syrian government and the opposition, angering the rebels and leading to anti-Turkish protests.

Also on Tuesday, Çavuşoğlu said that the Syrian rebels and the regime in Damascus should “reconcile.”