Turkey demands 'respect' after taking Syria’s Afrin from Kurdish militia
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the United States to support its NATO partner as it prepares to expand military operations against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the United States today to “show respect” to Turkey as it prepares to expand an offensive against a Kurdish militia deeper into Syria after the swift capture of one of its strongholds in the war-torn country’s northwest.
The Turkish military and members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) aligned with it took the city of Afrin on Sunday, capping a two-month operation to repulse the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) from a province on Turkey’s border.
The YPG has enjoyed American support, including arms and training, in the fight against the Islamic State (IS), helping the US-led coalition since 2014 to expel the jihadis from almost all of Syria.
But Ankara sees the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party, which it lists as a terror group for waging a three-decade insurgency for greater autonomy within Turkey at a cost of 40,000 lives. Erdogan has vowed to eradicate Kurdish militants and said on Monday that his army would attack them in other parts of Syria and even northern Iraq.
