Turkey yesterday vowed to continue fighting a US-backed Kurdish militia that it views as a terrorist group after US President Donald Trump warned of economic devastation if Ankara attacks Kurdish forces as US troops withdraw.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Twitter that there was “no difference” between the Islamic State group and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia.
“We will continue to fight against them all,” Kalin said.
Photo: AFP
Turkey’s response came after Trump on Sunday said on Twitter: “Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds.”
“Mr @realDonaldTrump Terrorists can’t be your partners & allies. Turkey expects the US to honor our strategic partnership and doesn’t want it to be shadowed by terrorist propaganda,” Kalin said in a tweet to the US president.
Turkey views the YPG as a “terrorist offshoot” of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.
The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by Ankara, the US and the EU.
However, Washington has been working closely with the YPG, providing military support and training, in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria.
Kalin said that it was “a fatal mistake to equate Syrian Kurds with the PKK” and Turkey fought against terrorists, not Syrian Kurds.
US support of the YPG has been one of the main sources of tension between Turkey and the US, but there appeared to be some improvement on the issue after Trump last month said that 2,000 US troops would withdraw from Syria.
Ankara welcomed the decision after Erdogan told Trump by telephone last month that Turkey could finish off the last remnants of the Islamic State.
However, the US has expressed concern over the fate of the YPG, with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying Washington would ensure that Turkey would not “slaughter” Kurds.
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