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.
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.
That same day, Turkey and the United States elevated their row over the Syrian Kurds to the Twittersphere when US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees the US-led coalition’s fight against the Islamic State, took the unusual step of retweeting a Jan. 10 statement by its Kurdish-led allies, the Syrian Democratic Forces, in which they denied any links to the PKK.
Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin summed up his government’s ire a few hours later in a counter-tweet: “Is this a joke or @CENTCOM has lost its senses? Do you believe anyone will buy this? The US must stop trying to legitimize a terrorist group.”
