Turkey’s attack on Kurdish forces in Syria aids Islamic State: statement

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Turkey’s continued attacks on the People’s Protection Units (YPG) who are working to repel the Islamic State (IS) in Syria aid the terrorist organization indirectly, the Kurdish group said on Sunday.

The comment came after Turkish armed forces shelled YPG positions east of the Euphrates River in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava), with state media Anadolu claiming the attack was “within the scope of self-defense.”

Turkey “tries to disrupt the peace and stability in our region,” with its continued military provocations in the de facto Rojava-led areas, YPG said in a statement.

On Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan underlined his government’s “final warning” against groups Ankara perceives to be a threat to the country’s territorial integrity.

“We affirm once again that there” were no attacks “conducted from our side against the borders of” Turkey.

The Turkish bombardment targeted “the villages of Zormikhar, Charikhli, Siftek, and Ashme, all of them located west of [Kobani], with tank, mortars, and howitzer fire,” the YPG continued.

Turkish forces attacking the YPG as it continues to occupy the front lines in the fight against IS indirectly helps the terrorist organization, the group highlighted.

Ankara has long complained that the Kurdish YPG is an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The US, along with Turkey, considers the PKK a terrorist organization, but Washington sees the YPG as a distinct and different entity.

The Turkish army currently occupies a large portion of northwestern Syria, including the previously self-ruling town of Afrin which it invaded earlier this year in a bloody campaign that saw hundreds of civilians killed and some 160,000 people uprooted from their lands.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany