Summary
Turkey sought to calm speculation Tuesday it was planning to invade Syria, saying it would not act unilaterally but has a right to protect its borders.
Pro-government media outlets had claimed that the government was planning a cross-border operation in Syria, which would involve 18,000 ground troops and include the creation of a 110-kilometer (68-mile) long buffer zone within Syria.
On Saturday, two days after an attack by ISIS that left more than 200 civilians dead in the Syrian city of Kobani, Kurdish forces drove the militants out of the highly symbolic border town which Kurds had wrested from ISIS in January.
Turkey is one of the fiercest opponents of Bashar Assad's regime in Damascus and has taken in more than 1.8 million refugees since the war in Syria began.
Turkey has repeatedly called for the creation of a security zone inside Syria to protect its borders.
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