Turkish president compares Kurdish YPG fighters to ISIL and says neither group has a future in Syria.
Turkiye expects foreign countries to withdraw support for Kurdish fighters in Syria after the toppling of Bashar al-Assad, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says, as Germany warns against an escalation in fighting with Kurdish forces.
Speaking to reporters on a flight home from a summit in Egypt, Erdogan said there was no longer any reason for outsiders to back Kurdish fighters with the People’s Protection Units (YPG). His comments were released by his office on Friday.
The YPG is the main force in a United States-backed alliance called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeastern Syria. Turkiye considers the YPG an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has long fought the Turkish state and is designated as a “terrorist” group by Ankara, Washington and the European Union.
In his remarks, Erdogan compared YPG fighters to ISIL (ISIS), an armed group also known as Daesh, and said neither group has a future in Syria.
“In the upcoming period, we do not believe that any power will continue to collaborate with terrorist organisations. The heads of terrorist organisations such as Daesh and PKK-YPG will be crushed in the shortest possible time.”
The US still has 2,000 soldiers on the ground in Syria working alongside the SDF. The alliance played a major role on the ground defeating ISIL forces in 2014-2017 with US air support and still guards ISIL fighters in prison camps.
Ankara, alongside Syrian allies, has mounted several cross-border offensives against the SDF in northern Syria while repeatedly demanding that its NATO ally Washington halts support for the fighters.
Hostilities have escalated since President al-Assad was toppled less than two weeks ago with Turkiye and Syrian groups it backs seizing the city of Manbij from the SDF on December 9, prompting the US to broker a fragile ceasefire.
Erdogan told reporters that Turkiye wanted to see a new Syria in which all ethnic and religious groups can live in harmony. To achieve this, ISIL, “the PKK and its versions, which threaten the survival of Syria, need to be eradicated”, he said.
Security for Kurds ‘essential’
Later on Friday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told her Turkish counterpart that security for the Kurdish people is critical for Syria.
“Security, especially for Kurds, is essential for a free and secure future for Syria,” she told journalists after meeting Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan while warning of the dangers of any “escalation” with Kurdish forces in Syria.
Baerbock also raised the alarm over new violence in northern Syria.
“Thousands of Kurds from Manbij and other places are on the run in Syria or are afraid of fresh violence,” the German minister said. “I made it very, very clear today that our common security interests must not be jeopardised by an escalation with the Kurds in Syria.”
Fidan told Baerbock that it was essential for Kurdish groups including the PKK and YPG to lay down their arms and dissolve, Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials said.
Meanwhile, a senior US diplomat said on Friday that Washington was urging a ceasefire between Turkish-backed forces and the SDF around the flashpoint Syrian city known as Kobane in Kurdish and Ain al-Arab in Arabic.
“We are working energetically in discussions with Turkish authorities, also with the SDF. We think the best way ahead is for a ceasefire around Kobane,” Barbara Leaf, the top US diplomat for the Middle East, told reporters after her first visit to Damascus since the fall of al-Assad.