Pentagon could misinform Trump about Syrian Kurds: Turkey FM
ANKARA, Turkey (Kurdistan24) - Officials from the US Department of Defense who "misled" former President Barack Obama about the Syrian Kurdish forces could misinform the administration of Donald Trump, according to Turkey's Minister for Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu.
"We do not want our ally, the US, to continue to ally with a terrorist organization that is targeting us," said Cavusoglu on Thursday about the anti-Islamic State alliance between the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and US Army in Syria.
Pentagon submitted a revised plan to defeat the IS to the White House this week, as Ankara has been mounting pressure for months on Washington to throw in its lot with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions instead of the YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Publicization on social media of SDF training by the US Army's Central Command (CENTCOM) caused harsh criticism on pro-government Turkish media which suggested a closure of the vital Incirlik Air Base to American warplanes in southern Turkey was on the table.
"Let's be realistic. Conducting operations with the YPG means risking Syria's future. The US should reverse such a mistake in no time," Cavusoglu told reporters among them a Kurdistan24 correspondent in Ankara.
Turkey has since the very beginning staunchly opposed the US-Kurdish cooperation in Syria that began after the Obama signed an order to launch airstrikes on IS targets there in late 2014, coinciding with an all out Islamist assault on the then besieged Kurdish border town of Kobani.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeatedly condemned the US air cover and weapons shipments to Kurdish-led forces over the course of two and a half years.
Cavusoglu reiterated his country's position that the Democratic Union Party (PYD)-ruled Kurdish region just south of Turkey's border was a "terror corridor," because of ties with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
MANBIJ
Regarding Wednesday attacks by the Turkish Army and the FSA that it supports on the SDF positions in Manbij, Cavusoglu said an operation to capture the town has not started yet.
"We have said before if the YPG does not withdraw from here [Manbij], we will hit [them]," Cavusoglu said, elaborating they did not want a confrontation with the US whose special forces are stationed there with the Kurds.
A spokesperson for the Operation Inherent Resolve, the US anti-IS campaign, General Stephen Townsend told the media on Wednesday that the YPG did not constitute a threat to Turkey.
Editing by Ava Homa
(Kurdistan24 Ankara Bureau contributed to this report.)