SyriaTurkey warns U.S., Russia against supporting Syrian Kurds
Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, referring the Syrian Kurdish forces, earlier today said that Turkey cannot accept “cooperation with terrorist organizations,” as Turkey summoned the U.S. and Russian ambassadors to Turkey to express Turkish displeasure with the United States and Russia supporting Kurdish groups fighting ISIS. Davutoğlu, has warned the United States and Russia against “unacceptable” military and political support for Syrian Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State in Syria. Turkey’s military actions in Syria are a mirror image of Russia’s military actions there. Russia says it is “fighting terrorism” in Syria, but more than 90 percent of its bombing attacks have targeted moderate, non-ISIS Syrian rebels, some of them backed by the United States. Turkey is also waging a “war on terror” in Syria, but the overwhelming majority of its airstrikes have targeted targets in the Kurdish region of Syria, not ISIS targets.
Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, referring the Syrian Kurdish forces, earlier today said that Turkey cannot accept “cooperation with terrorist organizations,” as Turkey summoned the U.S. and Russian ambassadors to Turkey to express Turkish displeasure with the United States and Russia supporting Kurdish groups fighting ISIS.
Davutoğlu, has warned the United States and Russia against “unacceptable” military and political support for Syrian Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State in Syria.
In televised comments, Davutoğlu said: “We have a clear position. That position has been conveyed to the United States and the Russian Federation. Turkey cannot accept any cooperation with terrorist organizations which have waged war against it.”
A Turkish foreign ministry official said the U.S. and Russian ambassadors were told on Tuesday “to convey Turkey’s views” about the Democratic Union party (PYD), the main Kurdish group in Syria. “Necessary warnings were issued,” the official added.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Turkey regards the PYD, the Syrian offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), as a terrorist organization. The PKK itself has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the EU.
Between 1982 and 2012, the PKK, the main Kurdish movement supporting the independence of the Kurds in Turkey, led a bloody campaign of violence against the Turkish government, a campaign in which more than 40,000 Turks, most of them civilians, were killed.
The PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan, is serving a life sentence in a Turkish jail.
In line with the new U.S. strategy in Syria, U.S.-led coalition forces over the last three days have airdropped arms and ammunition to anti-ISIS rebels in northern Syria. The Pentagon has not identified the groups receiving the new military supplies, but the United States had already been supplying military assistance to the Syrian Kurds even before the new policy was announced.
Russia’s main goal in Syria is not to fight ISIS, but rather to prop-up the regime of Bashar al-Assad by attacking non-ISIS rebel forces. The Syrian Kurds were loyal supporters of the Assad regime since Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, took over power in Syria in a coup in 1970. Until 1998, the PKK had its headquarters in Damascus, and the PYD, the main Kurdish political movement in the Kurdish areas of Syria, enjoyed freedom not accorded to other political movements in Assad’s Syria.
As has been the case with the Iraqi Kurds, the Syrian Kurds have proven themselves to be the most effective fighters against ISIS.
