The Syrian government on Saturday condemned Turkey's military presence in northern Syria as a violation of a 1998 protocol between the two countries. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has insisted the Adana Protocol gives his country the right to intervene militarily in the neighbouring country. Turkey and its Syrian rebel proxies control part of northern Syria, and Ankara has repeatedly threatened another military operation against Kurdish fighters on its southern border.

On Saturday, the foreign ministry in Damascus accused Ankara of repeatedly breaching the Adana deal throughout Syria's eight-year war. "Since 2011, the Turkish regime has violated and continues to violate this agreement," a ministry source said, quoted by state news agency SANA. The source accused Turkey of "supporting terrorists", using the regime's usual term for both jihadists and rebels.

It said Ankara was breaching the deal through "occupying Syrian territory via terrorist organisations linked to it or directly via Turkish military forces".

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019