Ankara riled by US push for Kurdish seat at Syria talks
US statements that Syrian Kurds should be included in talks on Syria's future have further agitated Turkish leaders, who are already upset about Washington's coalition with the People's Protection Units.
Tensions between Turkey and the United States over the latter’s alliance with Syrian Kurds in the battle against the Islamic State show no sign of abating, as Turkish leaders continue to accuse Washington of working with its enemies. “Turkey’s allies are still providing weapons to the YPG [People’s Protection Units],” Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak fumed Jan. 11. “And what business does a terror group have at the peace table?”
Kaynak was responding to remarks by US State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner, who at a Jan. 10 press briefing asserted that the YPG’s political wing, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), needs to take part in the currently stalled Geneva peace talks on Syria. “This process has to include all Syrians, and that includes the Syrian Kurds,” Toner said.
Turkey’s rants against the YPG have grown louder in recent weeks as the outgoing Barack Obama administration continues to weigh arming and training the YPG-dominated Syrian Defense Forces, a coalition of Arabs and Kurds, in preparation for a planned offensive to take Raqqa from IS. Turkey argues that the weapons will wind up in the hands of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is fighting for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey and is closely linked to the YPG.
Obama is widely expected to delay any decision on the issue and throw the ball into President-elect Donald Trump’s court. Turkish officials who spoke to Al-Monitor on strict condition of anonymity claimed that their arguments against the YPG had been bolstered by a Jan. 7 article in the Washington Post that laid bare the extent of PKK indoctrination within SDF ranks.
