US gives weapons to YPG it won't sell Turkey: Erdogan

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday complained the United States was giving weapons to the Kurdish groups in Syria that it wouldn’t sell to Ankara.

“While we are not allowed to buy weapons from you with our money, why are you giving those weapons to terrorist organizations for free?” Erdogan asked the US government in an interview with PBS.

The Turkish President was asked about the Donald Trump administration’s Monday withdrawal of a proposal to let Erdogan’s bodyguards buy $1.2 million in US-made weapons.

The US decision not to sell the arms followed US lawmakers’ rage over Erdogan’s security guards’ assault in Washington, DC on peaceful Kurdish-American protestors that wounded over a dozen people.

Erdogan labeled the reports confirmed by congressional officials as “rumors,” adding he would raise the issue with President Trump during their meeting set on Thursday on the sidelines of the annual United Nations convention in New York.

“I think it’s wrong for the US to fight terrorism with [the] YPG,” Erdogan said, reiterating his long-held fierce opposition to the American cooperation with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the war against the Islamic State (IS) that began during former President Barack Obama’s tenure.

Among the weapons denied to Erdogan’s security detail by the New Hampshire gunmaker Sig Sauer were hundreds of semi-automatic handguns and ammunition, reported AP.

In May, a week before the assault on demonstrators, Trump approved a Pentagon plan to ship thousands of high-tech arms and hundreds of armored vehicles to the Kurdish group Erdogan labels as “terrorist.”

US prosecutors have indicted 19 people, including 15 of Erdogan’s guards, for brutalizing the demonstrators.

On Monday, none of the guards wanted by the American authorities accompanied him to New York.

The Turkish President has previously questioned why the US would not sell his government which is fighting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) advanced attack helicopters, armed drones such as Predators, and tanks.

In the PBS interview, Erdogan claimed his country was not against the Kurds but the “terrorists.”

On the Kurdistan Region’s upcoming referendum on independence from Iraq, he said the vote should not take place.

“How can we accept a referendum when we have a border of 350 kilometers with Iraq,” he asked, adding Iran, another country with a restive Kurdish population was also against it.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany