US reissues travel warning to Turkey amid Syria invasion

State Department cautions Americans of ‘increased threats’ from terrorist groups, as well as restrictive government actions

By ToI Staff 30 August 2016, 12:38 am

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Illustrative photo of Turkish police and firefighters near a damaged police headquarters after a car bomb killed eleven Turkish police officers and injured 45 people on August 26, 2016 in Cizre, southeastern Turkey, an attack blamed on Kurdish militants, state media said. (AFP/Dogan News Agency/STR)

The US State Department on Monday warned American citizens of “increased threats” from terrorist groups throughout Turkey, urging its citizens to avoid travel to the country’s turbulent southeast.

The travel warning said the US continued to monitor Turkey for “recurring threats, a visible increase in police or military activities, and the potential for restrictions on movements.”

“US citizens should carefully consider the need to travel to Turkey at this time. In addition, we have recently experienced delays securing consular access to US citizens, some of whom also possess Turkish citizenship, detained or arrested by security forces,” the warning posted on the State Department website said.

The latest warning came following a series of deadly jihadist terrorist attacks in Turkey, and after Ankara launched military operations inside Syria against both Islamic State (IS) jihadists and the US-backed Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG)

Last week, Turkey sent tanks rolling across its southern border to help the Syrian opposition forces seize Jarablus from IS, creating a dilemma for Washington.

Clashes between the Turkish forces and the YPG over the weekend drew a sharp rebuke from the Pentagon, which called them “unacceptable.”

A US defense official said the US-backed Kurdish forces had pulled back to east of the Euphrates river over the past day or so, as demanded by Ankara.

Turkey, a key NATO ally, regards the YPG as “terrorists,” while the United States considers the militia an effective force against IS in Syria.

A US official said President Barack Obama will meet his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday in China on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit, and will discuss the counter-Islamic State campaign in Syria.

Earlier this year, the State Department and Pentagon ordered the families of US diplomats and military personnel to leave posts in southern Turkey due to security fears. Less than a month later, Washington issued a travel warning to American citizens of “credible threats” to tourist areas in Istanbul and Turkey’s popular resort city of Antalya.

AFP contributed to this report.