President Donald Trump warns his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan against harming Kurdish military units that have been closely allied to US forces in Syria.
“The president expressed the desire to work together to address Turkey’s security concerns in northeast Syria, while stressing the importance to the United States that Turkey does not mistreat the Kurds and other Syrian Democratic Forces with whom we have fought to defeat ISIS,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders says in a statement.
US forces are set to depart from Syria where they worked closely with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which Turkey considers to have terrorism links. Turkey has welcomed the planned US withdrawal from Syria, announced abruptly by Trump to the consternation of other NATO allies.
But there are concerns in Washington that Kurdish groups are being abandoned to attacks in the future by the far more powerful Turkish military.
On Sunday, Trump warned the US would “devastate” ally Turkey’s economy “if they hit Kurds.”
— AFP
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