(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Syria condemned Wednesday's Turkish incursion into an ISIS group-held border area as a "flagrant violation" of its sovereignty as Kurdish authorities said the action amounted to a "declaration of war".
The foreign ministry in Damascus said it "condemns the crossing of the Turkey-Syria border by Turkish tanks and armoured vehicles towards the Jarabulus area with air cover from the US-led coalition and considers it a flagrant violation of Syrian sovereignty".
The Syrian opposition in exile, however, welcomed the intervention.
The operation -- named "Euphrates Shield" -- began around 4:00 am (0100 GMT) with Turkish artillery pounding dozens of targets of the so-called Islamic State (IS) militant group around Jarabulus, the Turkish prime minister's office said.
"Syria demands the end of this aggression," the foreign ministry said.
"Any party conducting a battle against terrorism on Syrian soil must do so in coordination with the Syrian government and the Syrian army who have been fighting this war for five years.
"Chasing out IS and replacing them with terrorist groups backed by Turkey is not fighting terrorism."
The semi-autonomous Kurdish administration, which controls much of the border regions in north and northeast Syria, angrily branded Turkey's intervention a "declaration of war".
Turkey's incursion is its first into Syria since February 2015, when hundreds of Turkish troops crossed the border to move the relics of the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire.
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