CIA chief in Ankara, US support to Syria Kurds on agenda

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) - The Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Mike Pompeo visited Ankara on Thursday two days after a phone call between Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the US President Donald Trump.

Upon arrival in the Turkish capital, Pompeo went to the headquarters of Turkey's National Intelligence Organization after a one-hour stay at the US Embassy, said Kurdistan24's Ankara Bureau.

The new CIA director's first official visit abroad was for negotiations between Ankara and Washington over the US support to the Syrian Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State (IS), according to pro-government Turkish media.

A government insider columnist, Abdulkadir Selvi wrote in the mainstream Hurriyet newspaper that Trump told Erdogan that he was sending his CIA chief for detailed talks when the latter demanded an end to the US support for Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

Pompeo was also expected to meet with Erdogan whose rule he had earlier called a "totalitarian Islamist dictatorship" in a tweet on the night of the mid-July coup attempt in 2016 by a clique within the Turkish Army against the government.

A then-representative for a US congressional district in Kansas and Pompeo later deleted his Twitter account.

During the phone call with Trump, Turkish President also asked for the extradition of the Pennsylvania-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen whose followers Erdogan blame for the botched coup attempt.

Another issue Pompeo was to discuss with Turkish officials was a campaign to seize the de facto IS capital of Raqqa which is already encircled from the north and northwest by the YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Editing by Ava Homa