Kurdish fighters 'carry out ethnic cleansing' in Syria

For the past week, Turkish military forces have been shelling targets in northern Syria held by the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units, the armed wing of the Syrian Democratic Union Party, a group designated by Turkey as a terrorist organisation.

A Syrian girl makes her way through debris following reported air strikes in Hammuriyeh on the outskirts of Damascus.

 Over the weekend, Ankara demanded that fighters leave the areas they captured from opposition forces in the northern part of Aleppo, including the Menagh airbase in the city of Azaz. Ankara has urged the protection unit fighters, known as the YPG, not to expand their territory for some time.





But both Washington and Ankara hold opposing views on Kurdish groups fighting in Syria. While Washington views the Syrian Democratic Union Party, or PYD,  as a close ally in the campaign against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Syria, Ankara believes that it is the Syrian wing of the Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK.

Turkish forces have been bogged down in battle with the PKK for more than 30 years. The PKK is designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union, while the PYD is not.

Al Jazeera talks to Yasin Aktay, an MP who is deputy chairman for foreign affairs in the ruling Justice and Development Party, on the Turkish shelling on the PYD, the current situation in northern Syria, the refugee crisis and US-Turkish relations in the context of the Syrian crisis.