Turkey has removed militants from swathe of Syria - president

Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan points at the United Solidarity and Brotherhood rally in Gaziantep, Turkey, August 28, 2016. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's president said on Friday the Turkish-backed incursion in north Syria was going successfully and a 400 sq km area had been cleared of Islamic State and the Kurdish YPG militia force. "Nobody can expect us to allow a terror corridor on our southern border," Tayyip Erdogan told a news conference, after the U.S. criticised Turkey for attacking the YPG, a Syrian group Washington has backed. Erdogan said Islamic State and the Kurdish YPG threatened Turkey, which is fighting a Kurdish insurgency on its own soil. He also said Turkey had sought the establishment of a "safe zone" in Syria, but said the idea had not received the backing of other world powers. (Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Edmund Blair)