The Takeaway: US-Turkey strains worsening over Syrian Kurds amid fresh Erdogan complaints
Turkish president questions US-Turkey NATO alliance, while Iran expands influence in eastern Syria; US still partner of choice for GCC countries, but China may be gaining; kingdom offers inducements to businesses; more!
Erdogan (again) accuses US of acting with terrorists in Syria
What kind of alliance is this? Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has, for the second time this month, accused the United States of siding with terrorists in Syria. Reacting to a tweet by Col. Wayne Marotto, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the US-led mission against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Erdogan said on Feb. 22, “What kind of a NATO alliance is this? … They (the US) still act with terrorists.”
Marotto had simply tweeted that the US-led mission “hasn’t changed” and that the coalition “works, by, with & thru our partner force SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) to defeat Daesh (Islamic State)” in Syria. Marotto’s tweet hardly seemed like news. But it was a trigger for Erdogan.
Background. Erdogan has vowed to expand military operations against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in Iraq and Syria after the group reportedly ordered the execution of 13 Turkish hostages on Feb. 13; the PKK claims the hostages were killed in airstrikes by the Turkish military on its base in the mountains of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, on the Turkish border. The PKK, founded in 1984, is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, Turkey and the European Union. While the allies agree on that, they differ on exactly who the PKK are. Turkey considers the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), extensions of the PKK. But the YPG makes up the core of the US-aligned SDF — and thus is the source of the increasingly sharp differences between Washington and Ankara.
Last week, on Feb. 15, Erdogan warned the United States that “if you want to continue our alliance globally and within NATO, then you must stop siding with terrorists,” as Amberin Zaman reports.
