Turkey to receive US support against PKK: Defense Minister

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – The United States will provide more support to Turkey in its fight against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), said Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik on Saturday.

The Turkish Defense Minister revealed details of a meeting with his American counterpart James Mattis at the NATO Defense Ministers summit earlier in the week.

Isik stated Mattis had told him Turkey “deserved” more US support against the PKK which both countries label as “terrorist.”

Speaking to the daily Turkish Hurriyet newspaper in Munich, Germany where he was attending an international security conference, Isik said he believed the new US administration had more understanding toward his country’s concerns regarding Kurdish groups in the region.

The Turkish Minister did not elaborate on how the US would help his country against the PKK, but there has been previous cooperation between the two sides.

In 2007, the Pentagon announced it began giving Ankara intelligence for military strikes on PKK targets in the mountainous areas of the Kurdistan Region.

The years-long US-Turkish military intelligence sharing came to an end in late 2014 when IS launched an all-out assault to capture the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani.

This led to the Americans arguing the need for reconnaissance drones over Syria and a change in priorities towards locating IS targets rather than PKK locations, according to a then report by the pro-government Daily Sabah.

Additionally, Isik said there were two other issues which Mattis promised the US would back Turkey.

The first was further support in the ongoing Turkish incursion into northern Syria and second, preventing the Kurdish forces from uniting Afrin with Kobani.

“This last point is of particular importance to us, and I believe this has been achieved by means of the Euphrates Shield operation,” Isik stated.

The Turkish Defense Minister’s comments were referring to the Turkish offensive to push the Islamic State (IS) away from the border and prevent Kurds from forming a geographically contiguous statelet there.

Turkey is particularly dismayed by the continued US support for the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

The YPG is the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) that the Turks view as terrorist groups for ties with the PKK.

The US listened to Turkish views on Syria thanks to the Euphrates Shield that began in August 2016, according to Isik.

“At the beginning, [the US] did not care much. They listened to us out of courtesy, but they were continuing doing what they were doing,” he said.

“Now they listen, and they respond,” Isik concluded.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany