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News ID: 60745
Publish Date : 14 December 2018 - 21:53
If U.S. Doesn't Remove Kurdish Militia

Turkey Threatens to Enter Syria's Manbij


ANKARA (Dispatches) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Friday that Ankara was determined to bring peace to the east of the Euphrates in Syria, warning that Turkey would launch an operation against the so-called Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in the Syrian city of Manbij, in case the U.S. does not remove the Kurdish forces from the region.
Ankara and Washington have been repeatedly clashing on the issue of Kurdish troops in the Syrian conflict. According to the Turkish authorities, YPG is a terrorist organization, linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), banned by Ankara, while the American has side supported Kurdish units that joined the U.S.-backed so-called Syrian Democratic Forces.
The development came after Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo discussed the situation in Syria in a phone conversation on Thursday, a source in the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.
"Today, our minister held phone talks with U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo, they discussed the situation in Syria," the source said.
U.S.-Turkish relations have suffered a setback amid Ankara's concerns over U.S. support for the YPG. Ankara has also repeatedly accused Washington of failing to fulfill its promises regarding the withdrawal of the YPG from Syria’s Manbij.
 The U.S. military established "observation posts” in northern Syria with the purported aim of preventing clashes between Turkish forces and U.S.-backed Kurdish militants, despite Ankara’s strong opposition to the plan.
"At the direction of Secretary (James) Mattis, the U.S. established observation posts in the northeast Syria border region to address the security concerns of our NATO ally Turkey,” Department of Defense spokesman Rob Manning said in a press release on Tuesday.
This is while Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar had, during a meeting with U.S. Special Envoy to Syria James Jeffrey in Ankara, called on Washington to lift the so-called observation posts in northern Syria, along parts of Turkey’ border.
Akar also said earlier that Turkey had expressed its concerns about US plans to set up several observation posts in Syria, a move, which according to him, could lead to a perception that Washington is "somehow protecting terrorist YPG [Kurdish People’s Protection Units] members."
Cavusoglu this month lambasted as a "big mistake” the U.S. support for the YPG militants in Syria, a thorny issue in ties between the two allies.
The Pentagon’s Tuesday release further said that the U.S. military would coordinate with Turkey its security efforts in the border region.
"We take Turkish security concerns seriously and we are committed to coordinating our efforts with Turkey to bring stability to northeastern Syria,” Manning said in the press release.
Washington infuriated Ankara by announcing a plan for the formation of a Kurdish militant force in Syria near the Turkish border.
The plan prompted Turkey to launch a cross-border military operation on January 20 inside the Arab country, code-named Operation Olive Branch, with the declared aim of eliminating the YPG militants from northern Syria, particularly the Afrin region.
Turkish troops captured Afrin in March, and threatened to take the battle to nearby Manbij. Ankara and Washington agreed a roadmap on Manbij, which would see the city cleansed of U.S.-backed Kurdish militants.

The file photo shows members of the People's Protection Units (YPG), part of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in the town of Shadadi, south of the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakah, September 11, 2018.