Turkey slams Trump's decision to arm Syrian Kurds
Turkey considers the YPG an extension of the outlawed PKK, which has fought an insurgency in its southeast region for decades.
Friday 12 May 2017 14:58, UK
Turkey's Prime Minister has bitterly criticised the US government over its support for Kurds fighting so-called Islamic State in Syria just a few days ahead of a summit between Donald Trump and is own president.
Binali Yildirim said on a visit to London that the US was using one terrorist organisation inside Syria to attack another.
"Daesh (so-called Islamic State) is a terrorist organisation and in order to annihilate it the US is using the PKK, YPG or PYG (Syrian Kurd fighters)," he said.
"This does not benefit a significant country like the US. To destroy one terror organisation using another. It will become a problem."
He added: "Are you going to create another terrorist organisation to fight them next?"
Turkey has been enraged by an increase in the supply of heavy weapons including mortars and anti-tank missiles to the Kurds who, alongside British and American special forces, have been tightening the noose around the militant's 'capital' Raqqa.
This week combined Arab and Kurd forces, backed by the US and UK, captured the Tabla dam and nearby town in a move that means they are now within striking distance of Raqqa.
But this very success has meant the Turks, who back a rival group of Free Syrian Army fighters also battling Daesh not far from Raqqa, have begun to insist they should lead the assault against the extremist strongholds.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is due to meet with President Trump on Tuesday just ahead of the US President's first foreign tour abroad when he will visit Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Vatican.
The recent supply of weapons to the Kurds in Syria will be top of the agenda.
"This can be corrected. This plan was not the Trump administration's plan. This plan was conceived under the previous administration," the Turkish Prime Minister insisted.
He went on to claim that James Mattis, the US Secretary of State, had assured the Turkish government this week that its support for the Kurds in northern Syria was "only temporary" and that they were still considered a "terrorist organisation".
"The PKK (Syrian Kurds) are terrorist organisations now called the YPG or PYG. They are enemies to everyone and they are killing people for whoever gives them money. This means that the US does not risk losing soldiers there," he said.
But Syria's Kurds in Raqqa are seen very differently by British and American officials on the ground and their governments back home.
Aside from the forces marshalled by Turkey, they have been seen as the only reliable forces in the fight against the so-called Islamic State.
And whatever the commitments allegedly made by the US to Turkey that the Kurds would withdraw following a victory in Raqqa it is also not clear that this will be reflected by reality on the ground.
Syria's Kurds are committed to a federal future for the country after the war - with the region in the north they call Rojava firmly under the control of ethnic Kurds.
For Turkey, the second largest armed force in NATO, this could give separatist Kurds a permanent base to conduct attacks inside their own territory.
The Kurds, meanwhile, will assume that the blood and treasure they have spent in the fight against Islamic terrorists has earned them long-term support from Washington.