“The support of some allies, especially the USA, to terrorist organizations in Syria is obvious. We say that such support should be terminated,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a press conference during a NATO meeting in Bucharest.
Cavusoglu commended the position that the new government of Sweden has taken with regards to the deadly attacks in Turkey, notably the Istanbul blast which killed six and injured 81 that Turkey attributed to the People’s Protection Units (YPG) – a Kurdish armed group which it considers the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
“The new government in Sweden made stronger statements than some allies after the terrorist attacks in Turkey,” he said, but added that “we need to see concrete steps” with Sweden and Finland’s NATO application resting on the shoulders of Ankara’s approval.
The YPG and the PKK have both strongly denied involvement in the Istanbul attack and called for an international investigation to determine the perpetrators’ identity.
The Pentagon on Tuesday called for restraint in northern Syria as tensions surge and said that an incoming ground offensive in the region would severely jeopardize the gains made in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) and would destabilize the region.
Turkey on November 20 launched a new aerial campaign dubbed Operation Claw-Sword targeting positions of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria as well as PKK positions in the Kurdistan Region.
The SDF, a key US ally, played a vital role in the defeat of ISIS in Syria in 2019, and their backbone – the YPG – received worldwide attention for their successful defense of the Kurdish city of Kobane from the terror group in 2014.
Last week, the US Central Command said that a deadly Turkish drone strike against a joint Kurdish-American base that killed 2 SDF fighters put American forces in northern Syria in danger.
