Erdogan: Turkey doesn’t need US permission for offensive in Syria

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s president tells journalists that Ankara remains committed to rooting out a Syrian Kurdish militia from northern Syria.

“Like I always say, we’ll come down on them suddenly one night. And we must,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says on his plane following a visit to Azerbaijan.

Without giving a specific timeline, Erdogan says that Turkey will launch a cross-border operation against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which it considers a terrorist group linked to an outlawed Kurdish group that has led an insurgency against Turkey since 1984. That conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, has killed tens of thousands of people.

However, the YPG forms the backbone of US-led forces in the fight against the Islamic State jihadist group. American support for the group has infuriated Ankara and remains a major issue in their relations. Turkey considers the PKK and the YPG to be one and the same.

“All coalition forces, leading with the US, have provided these terror groups a serious amount of weapons, vehicles, tools, ammunition and they continue to do so. The US has given them thousands of trucks,” Erdogan says.

He warned that Turkey wouldn’t need anyone’s permission to fight terror.

“If the US is not fulfilling its duty in combating terror, what will we do? We will take care of ourselves,” he declares.