Turkey to deploy troops inside Syria's Idlib

NEW YORK – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said in an interview on Thursday that Turkey will deploy troops in Syria's northern Idlib region as part of a "de-escalation" agreement brokered by Russia last month.

Erdogan, in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, also said the United States was a strategic partner of Turkey that should extradite US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Erdogan accuses of orchestrating a coup that failed in 2015.

Erdogan warned Washington that a decision to arm YPG Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State in Syria could end up hurting Washington and its allies. Turkey views the YPG as the Syrian extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).