Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Friday that his country’s forces were on the verge of entering the center of the Kurdish-held Syrian town of Afrin. "Now our objective is Afrin... As of now, we have Afrin encircled. We can enter Afrin at any moment, God willing," Erdogan told his ruling AKP party in Ankara. He made the declaration a day after Turkish forces took control of the strategic town of Jandairis west of Afrin. Turkey now controls five out of seven of the settlements in the northwest Afrin region, state media said. The comments reflected Turkeys increasing confidence of pressing its operation against Kurdish militia in the Afrin region of northern Syria to a successful conclusion after seven weeks of fighting. "The operations in Afrin will continue until this swamp of terror is dried," he warned. “We are removing the last remaining obstacles standing before our besieging of Afrin city center,” he said, adding there was still about six kilometers (3.7 miles) to go to reach Afrin from the outskirts of Jandairis. Ankara on January 20 launched operation "Olive Branch" in the Afrin region of northern Syria against the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG), who control the area but Turkey regards as a terror group. Later on Friday, a spokesman for the YPG denied that the Afrin town had been besieged, and said several of the regions Turkey has claimed to have taken control of were still battlegrounds. “The forces of Erdogan’s Turkish army ... are 10 to 15 km away from it (Afrin),” YPG spokesman Nouri Mahmoud said. “Today, there were also clashes around Bulbul, where they announced around 30 days ago that they captured, occupied it.” The capture of Jandairis -- one of the key centers in the region other than Afrin itself -- was seen by analysts as giving Ankara a clear path towards its main target. Turkish state media said Turkeys advance continued on Friday, with the forces now on the edge of the Afrin municipal district. It said they had also taken control of the Afrin Dam -- also known as the 17 April Dam -- which stores water and provides some hydroelectric power. Graphics published by state media show that the Turkish forces are seeking to encircle Afrin in a two-pronged pincer movement from the northeast and southwest, though they have yet to fully surround it. Erdogan also reaffirmed his previous vows that Turkey would not limit itself to clearing the Afrin region of the YPG, saying it wanted to carry on to the town of Manbij to the east and then to the Iraqi border. "Today we are in Afrin and tomorrow we will be in Manbij. And the next day we will ensure that terrorists are cleared east of the Euphrates River up to the Iraqi border," he said. Manbij is regarded as a particularly delicate issue as the United States -- unlike in Afrin -- has a presence there, raising the prospect of a direct clash with Turkey. On a visit to Ankara last month, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Turkey and the US had to solve the tensions surrounding Manbij as a "priority". Turkey sees the YPG as the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has battled the Turkish state in an over three-decade long insurgency. The United States and the European Union see the PKK as a terror group but do not label the YPG with the term. On Thursday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey would complete the Afrin offensive by May and carry out a joint operation with Iraq’s central government against Kurds in Iraq. Cavusoglu said the operation could begin after Iraq’s parliamentary elections scheduled for May 2018, signaling that Turkish forces may move to northern Iraq following the ongoing operations in northern Syria.