ISTANBUL — The Turkish Army rescued its guards and removed remains from the Tomb of Suleyman Shah in Syria, which had been besieged by Islamic State militants, the prime minister of Turkey, Ahmet Davutoglu, said in a televised news conference on Sunday. One soldier died in an accident during the operation.
The military operation late Saturday did not involve international assistance or approval, but the authorities in the region, as well as allied forces engaged in an ongoing military campaign against the Islamic State, were informed of the operation, the prime minister added.
A Foreign Ministry statement said that clashes and instability in Syria had prompted the operation to rescue about 40 military personnel, including 20 elite special forces, who were encircled by Islamic State militants around Karakozak village in Munbic town, about 20 miles outside Turkey’s southern borders. There were no clashes during the evacuation of the tomb, Mr. Davutoglu emphasized, while one soldier, according to a statement provided by the Turkish Army, was killed in an accident during the movement of the troops.
Suleyman Shah was the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire. His tomb is considered by the government here to be Turkish territory, and it has been guarded by Turkish soldiers.
A few days ago, Ankara received warnings from personnel at the tomb that clashes between Kurdish pesh merga fighters and Islamic State militants could erupt and the tomb was likely to be targeted,
the news channel NTV said; these warnings prompted the operation, it said.
Mr. Davutoglu said, “Turkish armed forces, with 39 tanks, 57 armored vehicles, 100 vehicles and 572 personnel entered into Syria and, by 00:30, our troops have reached Sah Saygi Station.”
“A religious ceremony was held for the transfer of the tomb remains,’’ he continued, “while other items of cultural significance were removed with similar care. Our troops were safely removed from the area.’’
The burial site, including a security station, was destroyed to avoid possible use by the extremists, he added.
In March, Mr. Davutoglu, the foreign minister at the time, said that Turkey would take any measure necessary to safeguard the security of the tomb, referred to as Turkish soil based on an accord signed between Turkey and France in 1921.
As the Turkish flag was being lowered at the tomb site early Sunday, Turkish troops had cleared an area close to the Ashme district in Rojava, a Syrian Kurdish region, for Suleyman Shah’s new burial site in line with the accord from 1921, the prime minister said. Turkish television footage showed images of troops planting the Turkish flag at the new site.
The tomb has already been moved twice, most recently in the 1970s when the burial site on the Euphrates was flooded after the construction of a dam.
Tension has been mounting around the Suleyman Shah tomb since last year when Islamic State militants took control of the surrounding area and in December released a video threatening to destroy the enclave unless guards lowered the Turkish flag.
In June last year, the Islamic State took 46 Turkish and three Iraqi nationals hostage after a military raid on Turkey’s consulate in Mosul, a crisis that prompted Ankara into joining the United States-led international coalition against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. The hostages were released on terms that were not disclosed.
The operation at the tomb came after Turkey signed a deal with the United States on Friday to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels in combat against the Islamic State as well as the Syrian forces over three years.
Turkey’s operation strengthened its position in the region, some analysts said.
“The Suleyman Shah tomb has been a point of vulnerability for Turkey for a long time, and with this operation, such weakness has been eliminated,” said Sinan Ulgen, the chairman of the Istanbul-based Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies and a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe in Brussels. “Islamic State could have used the presence of the tomb as leverage in case of any confrontation with Turkey.”
In 2012, at a time when the Syrian conflict had intensified and started to threaten the security along Turkey’s southern borders, Ankara revised its military engagement rules and licensed the army to launch cross-border operations as deemed necessary.
The Turkish Army entered into Syria through Kobani, the Kurdish territory in Syria that had recently been freed of Islamic State militants in an American-led military operation, and corresponded with the Syrian Kurdish authority in the region before beginning the operation.
The cooperation was taken as a sign of some easing of relations with the Syrian Kurdish group, which Ankara considers an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the P.K.K., which it lists as a terror organization fighting for autonomy in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast.
Turkey has opposed any international military support that the United States-led coalition provided to the Syrian Kurdish group, upon fears that such support could inspire separatist tendencies among Kurds in Turkey.
“The coordination prior to Saturday’s military operation displays some agreement with the Syrian Kurdish groups,” Mr. Ulgen said. “This cooperation, however, should not be regarded as a game-changer in Ankara’s approach towards Syrian Kurds.”
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