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Turkey, US take Syrian Kurdish battle to Twittersphere

CENTCOM retweeting Syrian Kurds' denial of affiliation with the Kurdistan Workers Party has opened a new front in the battle between Turkey and the United States over US support for Syrian Kurdish forces in the fight against the Islamic State.
A Kurdish fighter from the People's Protection Units (YPG), operating alongside with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), sits inside a vehicle as she works on a laptop in the town of Hisha after the SDF took control of the area from Islamic State militants, in the northern Raqqa countryside, Syria November 14, 2016. REUTERS/Rodi Said - RTX2TNGJ

In a blistering Jan. 11 editorial in The Washington Post, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu didn’t mince words: “Turkey has been expected to endure the morally bankrupt cooperation between our strategic ally and the YPG/PYD. As the PKK is ever emboldened to continue its terrorist campaign, the Turkish people are justifiably asking some hard questions,” he wrote.

Cavusoglu was referring to the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), its political wing the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the militia fighting for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey.

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