President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey needed to clear the Afrin region of northwest Syria of Kurdish YPG militia fighters, who have been in the forefront of the battle there against the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group.
Erdogan, speaking in Ankara to officials from the ruling AK Party, also expressed disappointment with the United States, which backs the YPG, Reuters reported. Ankara views the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency in Turkey and is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union. “We need to cleanse Afrin of the structure there called the YPG terrorist organization,” Erdogan said. “We are greatly disappointed by the United States not keeping its promises. Many issues that we could have resolved easily...were pushed to a dead-end,” he said.
