(MENAFN) President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed on Sunday that Turkey's military campaign against accused Kurdish "terrorists" in northern Iraq and Syria may be expanded to include a ground element. The cautionary comes in response to border checkpoint attacks, the most recent of which, according to the Interior Ministry, on Monday claimed the lives of three Turkish citizens.

Erdogan spoke to reporters on his aircraft home from Qatar, “this is not limited to just an air operation.” Noting that “if someone disturbs our country and lands, we will make them pay the price.”

The Turkish president was making reference to airstrikes carried out by Ankara overnight against what the military claimed were YPG/PKK hideouts. Ankara views the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia group, as a branch of the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers' Party. The central government was the target of a guerrilla war waged by the PKK, which has its stronghold in Turkey.

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