Turkey PM expects Trump to stop supporting YPG

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) - The United States had to make a choice between Turkey and "despicable terrorist organizations," said on Tuesday the Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.

Calling the US support for the Syrian Kurdish forces which are fighting the Islamic State (IS) group an "ignominy," Turkish PM stated that he expected the incoming Trump administration to stop aiding them.

During his campaign as a Republican candidate for president, Trump voiced his admiration of Kurdish forces and advocated arming them both in Iraq and Syria.

Trump's Democratic rival Hillary Clinton as well promised support for the Kurds despite Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's protests.

The US and the International Coalition it leads in countering the IS mainly rely on the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and the YPG's multi-ethnic surrogate, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Yildirim was speaking at his ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) weekly Parliamentary convention at the Turkish National Assembly, televized by the state TV, TRT.

Turkish PM went on blaming the outgoing President Barack Obama's policies, telling AKP lawmakers that "using a terror group to fight terrorism was Obama administration's cunningness."

The US has officially provided the SDF with arms shipments since late 2015 and not the YPG, a situation that has much frustrated Turkey's leaders, including Erdogan who previously accused the US of supporting terrorism.

The alliance grew out of the late 2014 IS assault on the Kurdish town of Kobani, when President Obama ordered the US warplanes to conduct airstrikes and airdrop weapons for the YPG defenders of Kobani.

Turkey deems the US-backed YPG to be a "terror" group for having ties with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) with which its army is locked in a decades-long guerrilla warfare over government repression of Kurdish rights and political demands.

Some 300 US special operations soldiers too are embedded with the Kurdish-led forces on the ground in Syria since a year ago as they push for the de facto IS capital of Raqqa with the help of Coalition airstrikes.

Fearing the prospects of a contiguous Kurdish autonomous region along its southern border, Turkey, which initially was reluctant fighting the IS, launched an incursion into Syria against the IS in August 2016 in a bid to prevent the YPG gaining more ground.

Turkish incursion dubbed Operation Euphrates Shield initially received US air support, but since Turkey started targeting Kurdish positions west of the River Euphrates the US withdrew its support.

"We will increase friendships and decrease enmities. If there is no [state] authority in Iraq, and in Syria, we cannot be in safety," added Yildirim.

Editing by Ava Homa