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Turkey will “soon” share evidence that the United States has supplied the PKK/PYD terrorist organization with arms, the country’s foreign minister said Friday.
Speaking to foreign media representatives in Istanbul, Mevlut Cavusoglu said the US “is repeating a mistake” with the approval of secret cooperation between the Daesh and PKK/PYD terrorist groups in Syria.
Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon on Tuesday defended the deal, saying it was part of a “local solution to a local issue”.
But Cavusoglu warned that “YPG [PKK/PYD] is gaining more and more territory, which is a very risky development”.
Referring to the “good cooperation between YPG and Daesh – between two terrorist organizations,” he said:
“Nobody denies it. We have been telling our US allies and others in the coalition that there is no difference between YPG and the PKK and that YPG is not fighting for freedom or the unity of the country but fighting to gain more territory in the country.”
Criticizing the US for not keeping its promise that PKK/PYD forces would withdraw from Raqqa, he said:
“They have not been able to pull back YPG from any town… Now, you see the statement which said they would continue to work with YPG.”
“We are going to share soon the photos and evidence showing weapons that the US has been giving to YPG and also weapons made in other coalition states, including Germany.”
so i dont see a problem with what be have been admittdely been doing for a while now in a fight against ISIS
The YPG has been instrumental in retaking territory from Isis. And it will be at the forefront of the coming battle to retake Raqqa as part of the Syrian Democratic Force, the umbrella militia that is ethnically dominated by Arabs but is spearheaded by the YPG and its Kurdish fighters. Washington’s decision on Tuesday to directly arm the YPG and equip it with heavy weaponry is a game-changer for US relations with Syria’s Kurds – and, potentially, for the way western governments engage with armed groups, to reflect the emerging regional order. Supplying the YPG in this way comes with responsibilities. Turkey fears the ascendancy of the YPG, which is the sister-group of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), an organisation that has fought the Turkish state for 40 years. What worries Ankara is the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish region along its borders acting as a launchpad for attacks on Turkish soil, and this concern cannot be ignored. Isolating the second-largest military force within Nato – a traditionally indispensable component of the western-led liberal international order (an order that, granted, might be debatable today) and a regional power that constrains the hegemonic ambitions of Iran and Russia – could bring more costs than benefits for both the region and the international community.
we do list the PKK as a terrorist organization though
“We’ve long supported the YPG within the context of the SDF, the Syrian Democratic Forces that are operating in northern Syria,” Toner said, responding to questions during a press briefing on March 8. “They’ve been very effective – we’ve talked about this many times – in removing ISIS from the battlefield, dislodging them, and ultimately destroying them,” he said, using another acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). “I think they’ve liberated some 6,000 kilometers and more than 100 villages from ISIS around Raqqa since the operation began on November 4th [2016]. We’re also obviously mindful of Turkey’s concerns with respect to the YPG and we respectfully disagree with them linking the YPG with the PKK. And let’s be very clear that, with respect to the PKK, we still view them as a terrorist organization,” he said.
personally id rather have the kurds around then ISIS ,and the kurds have been persecuted for a long long time and we have not done enough to help them as we have kind of owed it to them since we toppled the ottomans
Kurds are an ethnic minority that live in parts of Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran. They have been persecuted for decades — from Turkey’s suppression of Kurdish identity and banning of Kurdish language to Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons on Kurdish communities. Their leaders, from the numerous different parties and rebel groups that represent them, have long sought an independent Kurdish state encompassing that territory and have fought against their respective governments to try to achieve that. For decades, Turkey fought the PKK in a guerrilla war to push for sovereignty in Kurdish areas of Turkey, but for the past two years the parties have had a truce and were engaged in a peace process. In recent days, Turkey has arrested hundreds of Kurdish activists and politicians and hit the PKK with more than 450 strikes, according to Kurdish leaders. The Turkish government hasn’t said how may air raids it has carried out or who were the targets. Hoshang Waziri, a political analyst based in Erbil, says the Kurds’ recent territorial gains in Syria along Turkey’s border and their increasing political legitimacy in the eyes of the West, have made the Kurds a bigger threat to Turkey than ISIS. “The fear of the Turkish state started with the Kurdish defeat of ISIS in Tel Abyad,” says Waziri.
last time i checked the Kurds have committed no genocide but the Turks sure as hell have ,and with the kurds being victims of genocide themselves i can see why they enjoy being relatively heavily armed for the regions military groups .
In the early 20th Century, many Kurds began to consider the creation of a homeland - generally referred to as "Kurdistan". After World War One and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the victorious Western allies made provision for a Kurdish state in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres. Advertisement Such hopes were dashed three years later, however, when the Treaty of Lausanne, which set the boundaries of modern Turkey, made no provision for a Kurdish state and left Kurds with minority status in their respective countries. Over the next 80 years, any move by Kurds to set up an independent state was brutally quashed.
guess the turks want them unarmed so they can finish what Iraq started in the 80s. just remember one peoples terror group is another's freedom fighters
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE KURDISH GENOCIDE Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were executed during a systematic attempt to exterminate the Kurdish population in Iraq in the Anfal operations in the late 1980s. They were tied together and shot so they fell into mass graves. Their towns and villages were attacked by chemical weapons, and many women and children were sent to camps where they lived in appalling conditions. Men and boys of ‘battle age’ were targeted and executed en masse. The campaign takes its name from Suratal-Anfal in the Qur’an. Al Anfal literally means the spoils (of war) and was used to describe the military campaign of extermination and looting commanded by Ali Hassan al-Majid. The Ba’athists misused what the Qur’an says. Anfal in the Qur’an does not refer to genocide, but the word was used as a code name by the former Iraqi Ba’athist regime for the systematic attacks against the Kurdish population. The campaign also targeted the villages of minority communities including Christians.
guess the turks want them unarmed so they can finish what Iraq started in the 80s. just remember one peoples terror group is another's freedom fighters
from above source
Addressing the US' arming of the YPG, Putin said, “I heard the statement made by the Turkish president when the US announced they were going to supply arms to Kurds. We have not followed suit.” Russia recently made a show of force in Afrin by sending flag-mounted tanks and a number of soldiers on patrol alongside Kurdish fighters. The YPG spokesperson Redur Xelil said in an earlier interview that an agreement was made on March 19 with Russia to set up an airbase in the Syrian Kurdish province of Afrin to help combat terrorism. A week later, a group of Russian military experts arrived in Afrin with military-grade vehicles, stating Russian military staff and specialists would train the YPG forces. The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, however, denied the news related to the development of an airbase.
so with America arming them ,and Russia providing training and public support the Kurd's have the support of the two super powers against Turkey the Regional one.
Russia considers it right to maintain working contacts with Kurdish groups in Syria despite Turkey’s objections, as they are “fighting against terrorists,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on May 15. “As the Kurdish factor is a real factor in the situation in Syria and Kurdish armed formations are taking part in combat operations against ISIL and are among the most combat efficient units, we consider it right to maintain working contacts with them, even at least for avoiding possible collisions and situations that could create threats to our servicemen,” the Russian leader said in Beijing. When asked whether Russia supplies the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) with arms, Putin said that Moscow, “unlike the U.S. doesn’t do that.”
although china may get backlash for established ally Iraq over this issue
Chinese energy giant Sinopec’s $8.27 billion purchase of Addax, a Swiss-Canadian oil company with extensive investments in Iraqi Kurdistan, in 2009 was the most striking example of Beijing’s increased willingness to assert its economic influence in Iraqi Kurdistan. As Kurdish oil producers frequently offer more favorable deal terms to foreign investors than Iraqi government-owned oil companies, Sinopec used its financial stake in Iraqi Kurdistan’s oil industry to develop the Taq Taq oil field and create 16 new oil wells in Iraqi Kurdistan from 2009-2013. As the Iraqi government has imposed legal restrictions on foreign investment in Iraqi Kurdistan’s oil industry, which have been supported intermittently by the United States, the secession of Iraqi Kurdistan would allow China to cut lucrative bilateral deals with Kurdish companies with fewer regulatory obstacles.
originally posted by: Shamrock6
Somebody should tell him that the US pretty openly sent arms and support to the YPG. So openly that it's even on their Wiki page.
originally posted by: Shamrock6
a reply to: rickymouse
The first big event I'm aware of was in the 2015 fight for Raqqa, the US was airdropping supplies and arms to YPG.
Though, for what it's worth, there's been rumors of Russia also arming the same groups though no definite evidence of it has come to light.