The Turkish army has shelled Kurdish targets near the city of Azaz in northwest Syria, according to media reports.

Anatolia news agency said that the Turkish military hit Syrian government forces on Saturday, adding that the attack was in response to fire inflicted on a Turkish military guard post in Turkey’s southern Hatay region.

The Turkish shelling of Kurdish positions continued for more than three hours almost uninterruptedly, as a Kurdish source told RT. The same source said that the Turkish forces are using mortars and missiles and firing from the Turkish border not far from the city of Azaz in the Aleppo Governorate.

A source in the Turkish government confirmed to Reuters that the Turkish military had shelled Kurdish targets near Azaz on Saturday, as RT reports.

“The Turkish Armed Forces fired shells at PYD positions in the Azaz area,” the source said, referring to the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD),.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu also confirmed that Turkey shelled Syrian Kurdish fighters and demanded that the Kurds retreat from all of the areas that they had recently seized.

“The YPG will immediately withdraw from Azaz and the surrounding area and will not go close to it again,” he told reporters, adding that Turkey “will retaliate against every step [by the YPG],” as Reuters reports.

In the meantime, Washington urged Ankara to stop the air strikes against the forces of Syrian Kurds but also against the armed forces of the Syrian regime in northern Syria.