Turkey is insisting the United States review its backing for Kurdish militants in Syria, according to statements by its leaders including President Tayyip Erdoğan, who has again sailed the possibility of a new cross-border offensive.
“We are constantly reminding our American counterparts that they need to prevent the cooperation they have with the terrorist organization in Syria,”
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said.
“Our contacts on this issue have raised. We see that the U.S. side is willing on more talks and negotiations too,” he contended.
Erdoğan expressed Turkey could mount a new offensive into northern Syria to develop new safe zones along its border, after expressing that he would consult a possible U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria with President-elect Donald Trump.
Tensions in U.S.-Turkey ties include U.S. backing for the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, (YPG) militia, Washington’s main partner against Islamic State in Syria. Ankara names it a terrorist organization and attachment of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which the United States also considers a terror group. NATO member Turkey has carried out several cross-border processes against the YPG in recent years and has since risked more.
Erdoğan stated that these moves established safe zones in Syria that had
“thwarted endeavours to surround”
it from the southern borders, and Turkey decided to
“completely cut off contact between terrorist organizations.”
“God willing, we will finish the missing links of the safe zone we have established along our borders in the coming period,”
he stated.
In recent months Erdoğan has also made preludes to repair severed relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government after a decade of hostility. Ankara has grumbled that Damascus has not reciprocated its endeavours at rapprochement after Erdoğan expressed in July he wanted to invite Assad for discussions. Assad said those endeavours have yielded no results and Damascus wants Turkish troops to withdraw from Syrian territories.
