The Turkish military gave coalition forces fighting Islamic State militants less than an hour of advance notice before carrying out air strikes that killed a large number of allied Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria, a US coalition spokesman says.
"There was less than an hour of notification time before the strikes were conducted," US Air Force Colonel John Dorrian told a Pentagon teleconference on Wednesday. "That's not enough time and this was notification, certainly, not coordination as you would expect from a partner and an ally in the fight against ISIS."
On Tuesday, Turkish planes bombed Kurdish targets in Iraq's Sinjar region and northeast Syria, killing about 70 militants inside the two neighbouring states, according to a Turkish military statement.
Dorrian said the US-led coalition had "let the Turks know that the amount of time ... was inadequate for us to ensure safety of our forces on the ground".
He said US troops were within 6 miles (10 km) of the strikes and the advisory given by the Turks was too vague to enable them to respond effectively.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that Turkey's air strikes on Iraq and Syria were unacceptable and had violated the fundamental principles of intergovernmental relations.
"In this situation, we call on all parties to exercise restraint," the ministry said in a statement.
Turkish warplanes hit Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq on Wednesday and killed six militants, the military said, in a second day of cross-border raids.
