US officials say Turkey ‘well aware’ of their concerns over Syria offensive
The Biden administration is pushing Turkey to back off its planned offensive against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, US officials told lawmakers on Wednesday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last month that Ankara would soon begin military operations aimed at establishing a 30-kilometer “safe zone” along its southern border. Erdogan said the operation will initially target Kurdish "terrorists” in northern Syria’s Tal Rifaat and Manbij.
“The Turkish government is very well aware of our views. We have had a series of engagements with them,” Barbara Leaf, the assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during a hearing focused on US policy on Syria.
Why it matters: Ankara considers the Kurdish YPG militia that forms the backbone of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to be an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has carried out a decades-long insurgency in Turkey.
