Turkish army tanks cross Oncupinar border gate to enter Syria, in Kilis, Turkey, Saturday, Jan. 27, 2018. Turkey continued to reinforce its military presence in Syria Saturday, a day after the country's president vowed to expand Ankara's operation in a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria eastward toward the Iraqi border.
Turkish army tanks cross Oncupinar border gate to enter Syria, in Kilis, Turkey, Saturday, Jan. 27, 2018. Turkey continued to reinforce its military presence in Syria Saturday, a day after the country's president vowed to expand Ankara's operation in a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria eastward toward the Iraqi border. Lefteris Pitarakis AP Photo
Turkish army tanks cross Oncupinar border gate to enter Syria, in Kilis, Turkey, Saturday, Jan. 27, 2018. Turkey continued to reinforce its military presence in Syria Saturday, a day after the country's president vowed to expand Ankara's operation in a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria eastward toward the Iraqi border. Lefteris Pitarakis AP Photo

World

The Latest: Paris protest against Turkish offensive in Syria

The Associated Press

January 27, 2018 11:49 AM

BEIRUT

The Latest on the conflict in Syria (all times local):

6:50 p.m.

Several thousand people have rallied in Paris to support Turkey's Kurds and protest a Turkish military incursion into a Kurdish-controlled enclave in Syria.

Left-wing activists joined Kurdish opposition groups in Saturday's demonstration at the Place de la Republique in eastern Paris. Some waved banners denouncing Turkey's government and backing the U.S.-supported Kurdish militia, the YPG.

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The demonstrators urged French and other Western authorities to take a tougher stand against the Turkish campaign. France's government has urged restraint but the protesters say that's not enough.

Violence has escalated in northern Syria in recent days as Turkish forces have targeted the city of Afrin and threatened to push further east toward the border with Iraq. Turkey says it is fighting extremists threatening regional stability.

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4:15 p.m.

Turkey's official news agency says a rocket fired from northern Syria has hit a house in the border province of Kilis, injuring two people.

The Anadolu news agency said the rocket was launched from the Afrin region Saturday afternoon and targeted the city center. The Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, control the enclave in northern Syria.

The private Dogan news agency said the rocket did not explode.

Turkey began a military operation on Jan. 20 against the YPG, which it deems a terror group. Since then, multiple rocket attacks have killed three people — two of them Syrian refugees — and wounded more than 20 others.

The Turkish military's chief of staff and a deputy prime minister visited the scene of the most recent rocket attack.

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11:30 a.m.

Syria's main opposition negotiating body said Saturday it will boycott a peace conference in Russia next week, saying it would not lead to a genuine peace track that could end the country's seven-year war.

The High Negotiations Committee announced the boycott of the Russia-backed conference in Sochi in a tweet Sunday night after a vote held in Vienna, Austria, where a U.N.-led conference was being held.

The two-day conference ended, as in many previous rounds, with accusations hurled back and forth between the two sides in comments to the press.

"The (Syrian) regime doesn't believe in a political solution and it will not believe in the future ... it only believes in the military option," Syrian opposition leader Naser al-Hariri said from Vienna on Saturday.

Russia has been steering a separate negotiating track in Astana, and now in the Black Sea resort of Sochi where the conference is scheduled to be held on Monday with the participation of some 1,600 representatives of the Syrian government and opposition.

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