Turkey demands concrete steps from U.S. to stop support for Syrian Kurds

Source: Xinhua| 2018-01-28 06:05:48|Editor: Mu Xuequan
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ANKARA, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Turkey needs to see concrete steps by the United States to stop its support for the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Saturday.

Speaking to reporters in the Mediterranean province of Antalya, Cavusoglu also said the U.S. needs to withdraw from Manbij in northern Iraq immediately, local Hurriyet daily reported.

His remarks came after U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster told a Turkish presidential aide by phone on Friday evening that Washington would no longer supply the YPG with weapons.

The U.S. has been providing arms for the group as a partner in fight against Islamic State despite Ankara's warning.

The U.S. administration under former President Barack Obama had assured Turkey that the YPG would move to the east of the Euphrates, but the YPG never did that.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday said Turkish forces would clear the YPG militia from the Syrian border and could push all the way east to the Iraqi border.

On Jan. 20, Turkey launched "Operation Olive Branch" to remove the YPG militia from Syria's northwestern district of Afrin.

The YPG is the military wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), a group in northern Syria that Ankara sees as a terror group for its links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party in Turkey.

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