Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan says it is only ‘a matter of time before the YPG is eliminated’ in Syria, calls on the West to stop supporting the group.
Turkey’s foreign minister said it was “only a matter of time” before Kurdish-led armed groups in Syria were wiped out and that Ankara would not agree to any situation that would allow the YPG armed group to maintain a presence there after the fall. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Turkey sees the People’s Protection Units (YPG) – the main component of the United States-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – as a “terrorist” group linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
“The conditions in Syria have changed. We believe that it is only a matter of time before the PKK/YPG is eliminated,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said at a press conference in the capital Ankara on Monday.
Fidan warned against any Western support for Kurdish-led groups in Syria.
“If you [the West] they have different goals in the region, if you want to serve another policy by using Daesh as an excuse to encourage the PKK, then there is no way to do that either,” he said, using the Arabic name for the ISIL (also known as ISIS) group.
Turkey has long been under attack from US support for the Kurdish-led SDF in northern Syria.
But Washington has long seen the SDF, which led the fight against ISIL in 2019 and controls prisons and camps where the group’s fighters are held, as key to preventing the group’s resurgence.
New Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group has long had ties to Turkey, told Al Arabiya TV on Sunday that Kurdish-led forces should be integrated into the national army.
Fidan’s comments came after he met Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, with whom he discussed the ISIL threat in Syria following the ouster of al-Assad by HTS-led rebels.
Observers fear that ISIL fighters could be given room to regain strength after the ouster of al-Assad.
The group managed to survive in both Iraq and Syria despite the destruction of its so-called caliphate that lasted from 2014 to 2019.
“We talked about what we can do together against the Daesh threat in Syria and the region,” Fidan said.
“[ISIL] is poison for Muslim societies. Of course, using our religion to brutally kill people… [and] creating chaos is not something we will be silent about,” he added. “It is very important that [ISIL] he doesn’t get up anymore.”
Fidan’s comments came a day after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Syria’s new rulers were determined to eradicate the YPG.
“With the revolution in Syria … the hopes of separatist terrorist organizations have hit a wall,” Erdogan said in comments to his party on Sunday.
“The new administration in Syria shows an extremely determined attitude in preserving the territorial integrity and unitary structure of the country,” he said.
“The end of the terrorist organization is coming. There is no other option left but to surrender the weapons, give up terrorism and dissolve the organization. They will face the iron fist of Turkey.”
