Turkiye presses US to reconsider Kurdish partnership in Syria
Turkish leaders, including President Tayyip Erdogan, have said that they want the US to rethink its backing for Kurdish militants in Syria. Erdogan has also brought up the idea of a new cross-border offensive.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told the Milliyet newspaper on Monday, “We are constantly reminding our American counterparts that they need to stop working with the terrorist group in Syria.”
“We have more contacts on this issue now.” “We can see that the US side also wants to talk and negotiate more,” he said.
On Friday, Erdogan said that he would talk to President-elect Trump about the possibility of pulling US troops out of Syria. On Sunday, he said that Turkey could launch a new attack into northern Syria to make new safe zones along its border.
Turkey and the US have strained relations because the US backs the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which is Washington’s main partner in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria. Ankara calls it a terrorist organization and an extension of the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party, which is illegal in Turkey. The US also calls the PKK a terror group.
In the past few years, NATO member Turkey has carried out a number of operations across the border against the YPG and has since promised to do more.
As of Sunday, Erdogan said that these actions had created safe zones in Syria that had “thwarted attempts to surround” the country from the south. Erdogan also expressed Turkey’s commitment to “completely cutting off contact between terrorist organizations.”
“God willing, we will finish the missing links of the safe zone we set up along our borders in the next few weeks,” he said.
Erdogan has also attempted in recent months to mend the ten-year-old rift in relations with the Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government.
After Erdogan said in July that he wanted to meet with Assad for talks, Ankara has said that Damascus has not reciprocated its efforts to get along. Assad said those efforts have failed and that Damascus wants Turkish troops to leave Syrian territory.