Ankara voices concern over Syrian Kurds
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (K24) - Turkish officials relayed their concerns over the Western-backed Kurdish forces' expansion in Syria to Joseph Dunford, the American general who was visiting Turkey on a two-day trip, reported the Turkish daily Hurriyet on Thursday.
The US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dunford met his Turkish counterpart, Hulusi Akar, and Prime Minister of Turkey, Ahmed Davutoglu, on Wednesday in Ankara. The Chief of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization, Hakan Fidan, also attended the meeting.
Turkish officials reminded Dunford that they regarded the Syrian-Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed affiliate, the U.S.-backed Peoples' Protection Units (YPG), a terrorist organization, said Hurriyet.
The daily also said that the two sides discussed Turkey's "red line" for the Kurds. According to Turkish officials Syrian Kurds are not to cross the west of the River Euphrates.
The YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces' (SDF) liberation of the Tishrin Dam last month on the Euphrates, and their crossing the river's western bank were considered a breach of the Turkish red line.
Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Davutoglu have repeatedly vowed to attack the YPG if it attempted to cross the river. Indeed, Turkey hit the Kurds at least two times in October.
But the Kurds nonetheless continued to push westward.
The Tishrin offensive by the SDF killed "140 [IS] extremists in the last ten days... and reclaimed more than 310 square kilometers of terrain," revealed the Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) spokesperson, Colonel Steve Warren, in a video conference from Baghdad on Wednesday, according to a transcript on the website of the US Department of Defense (DOD).
OIR is the codename for the American military intervention against the IS.
The same day American General Dunford was in Ankara, the coalition warplanes conducted fourteen airstrikes near Manbij, a town 30 kilometers west of the Tishrin Dam, now controlled by the Kurds, a January 7 statement on OIR official Facebook page reads.
Dunford, on the other hand, praised the SDF offensive by telling reporters that “there have been some good things happening,” on his return from Turkey, according to a news article on the DOD website.
“The Tishrin Dam has been secured, [and] a pretty significant swatch of ground has been uncovered by the Sunni Arab coalition [SDF] working with the [Peoples’ Defense Units]," he added, using an alternative English name for the YPG.
Dunford also touched on his meeting with his Turkish counterpart and said, “it’s fair for me to say I don’t think there were any surprises in what I heard,” in an implied reference to the Turkish concerns over Kurdish gains in Syria.
Turkey fears that the Kurdish forces' connecting the cantons of Kobani and Afrin will make Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) a contiguous quasi-state along its southern frontier.
Davutoglu downplayed the significance of the Tishrin offensive last month and claimed that Arabs, not the Kurds, crossed the river.
President Erdogan denied having the knowledge of the offensive and added that Turkey would “not say yes to a Kurdish belt and do what is necessary," falling short of explaining how.