The Pentagon is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars to train Syrian fighters near the Turkish frontier while tamping down Ankara’s fears of a Kurdish-led border force.

The fiscal year 2019 budget blueprint released Monday calls for $300 million to train and equip the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces and $250 million for “border security requirements” related to the mission to counter the Islamic State (IS). The Pentagon released a statement today suggesting that the border security funding was meant to support US partners in Syria, only to later clarify that the money is meant to support the governments of Lebanon and Jordan to combat the crippled Sunni insurgency along with “other violent extremists, illicit weapons, as well as narcotics smuggling.”

The miscommunication has set off recriminations in the Turkish media that President Donald Trump's administration is moving forward with previously leaked plans to create a 30,000-strong border force in northeastern Syria to help cement gains made by the United States' Kurdish allies. Last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the proposed force a “terror army” and threatened to strangle it “before it’s even born.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has since walked back that proposal, and a Pentagon spokesman today flatly denied that the train-and-equip effort will pose a threat to Turkey. “This is not a new ‘army’ or conventional ‘border guard’ force,” Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway told Al-Monitor. “This training and these forces are consistent with campaign objectives to ensure an enduring defeat of [IS], facilitate stabilization efforts, and create the conditions that support the UN-led Geneva [peace] process.”