ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey has targeted the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) positions twice inside Syria, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
“We have told Russia and the US: PYD is not allowed to enter north of the Euphrates and we have targeted PYD twice,” Dauvtoglu said in an interview with Turkish Haber TV channel on Monday night
His comments confirmed previous claims of Turkish attacks made by the YPG forces, which are affiliated to the PYD. The PYD’s military wing has said that Turkey attacked Kurdish forces in Kobani and Tal Abyad in Syrian Kurdistan in October.
“The Turkish military’s attacks against positions secured by combatants of the People’s Defense Units (YPG) near the two border towns of Kobani and Tal Abyad – that started on October 24 – continue to this time,” the YPG said in a statement hours before Davutoglu’s confirmation.
Turkish and US officials disagree on supporting the Kurdish force. Turkey sees the PYD as an extension of its own outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), but US officials have praised them as an effective fighting force against the Islamic State group in Syria.
The Turkish Security Council (MGK) had stressed in a statement last week that the PYD must be recognized as an extension of the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and European Union.
The MGK statement came days after the United States began airdropping pallets of weapons and ammunition to the PYD and allied Arab forces in northern Syria.
The takeover of the town of Gire Spi by the YPG in early June marked the biggest setback yet for ISIS, putting even more pressure on the militants’ self-declared capital in Raqqa by depriving the group of a direct route for bringing in foreign fighters and supplies.
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