Turkey warns US of blowback from arming Kurdish fighters in Syria
Ankara — Turkey warned the US on Wednesday that a decision to arm Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State (IS) in Syria could end up hurting Washington, and accused its Nato ally of siding with terrorists. The rebuke came a week before President Tayyip Erdogan is due in Washington for his first meeting with US President Donald Trump, who approved the arms supply to support a campaign to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa from Islamic State. Turkey views the YPG as the Syrian extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought an insurgency in southeast Turkey since 1984 and is considered a terrorist group by the US, Turkey and Europe. "We want to believe that our allies will prefer to side with us, not with a terrorist organisation," Erdogan told a news conference in Ankara, saying he would convey Turkey’s stance to Trump next week and at a Nato summit later this month. He said he hoped that recently taken decisions would be changed by the time he visits the US. Ear...
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