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Turkey has ended the "Euphrates Shield" military operation it launched in Syria last August, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Wednesday, but suggested there might be more cross-border campaigns to come, Reuters reported.

The agency reminded Turkey sent troops, tanks and warplanes to support Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels, push Islamic State fighters away from its border and stop the advance of Kurdish militia fighters. "Operation Euphrates Shield has been successful and is finished. Any operation following this one will have a different name," Yildirim said in an interview with broadcaster NTV.

Under Euphrates Shield, Turkey took the border town of Jarablus on the Euphrates river, cleared Islamic State fighters from a roughly 100-km (60-mile) stretch of the border, then moved south to al-Bab, an Islamic State stronghold where Yildirim said "everything is under control".

One aim was to stop the Kurdish YPG militia from crossing the Euphrates westwards and linking up three mainly Kurdish cantons it holds in northern Syria.

Turkey fears the Syrian Kurds carving out a self-governing territory analogous to Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, a move that might embolden Turkey's own large Kurdish minority to try to forge a similar territory inside its borders.