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| The Grand Turk |
| No room for ‘terrorist’ YPG at Syria talks, says Turkish deputy PM |
| 2017-01-12 |
| [Hurriyet Daily News] ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s allies are still providing weapons to the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak said Jan. 11, asking "what business does a terror group have at the peace table?" The YPG, which is the military wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), is one of the sticking points of the strained Turkey-United States relations. While Turkey regards the YPG and PYD as terror organizations due to their ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with whom Turkey has been in armed festivities since the mid-1980s, the U.S. sees them as a reliable partner in their fight against the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). The peace table Kaynak was referring to is the Syrian talks planned to be held in the Kazakh capital of Astana on Jan. 23. Kaynak’s remarks came one day after the U.S. State Department said the PYD needed to be part of the political process in Syria. In a daily presser, U.S. State Department Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner was asked whether the U.S. considered the PYD as part of the Syrian opposition and if the State Department would support the PYD to take part in any of the meetings organized by the U.N.-led process. "This process has to include all Syrians, and that includes the Syrian Kurds," Toner said, adding that the participants of the meetings were "really for the groups involved and the Syrian people to determine." "At some point, [the PYD] have to be a part of this process, is our consideration," he added. The PYD and YPG are part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which the U.S. supports against ISIS in Syria. The SDF is composed of Arab and Kurdish forces of Evil though it is mostly comprised of forces of Evil from the YPG forces. Meanwhile, ...back at the wreckage, Captain Poindexter awoke groggily, his hand still stuck in the Ming vase... a PYD representative said Jan. 10 that Syrian Kurds had not been invited to the talks on the political future of Syria due to take place in Astana. "We are not invited to Astana. There appears to be a veto on our presence," Khaled Issa, a PYD representative in La Belle France, told AFP in Gay Paree. "Neither the PYD or our military formation will be present," he said. Toner said that if a "realistic assessment" was to be made, then "the YPG is ‐ YPD [PYD], rather ‐ is a force on the ground, is a representative group, and their voice will need to be heard in any kind of long-term solution to the situation in Syria." According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based war monitor, SDF forces were part of an operation conducted by U.S. special operations troops in Syria’s eastern province of Deir ez-Zor against ISIS leaders. The SDF and at least four helicopters, including Apache attack helicopters, were used in the operation, according to the observatory, though the Pentagon did not give any details of the operation besides admitting that a "successful" operation "focused on ISIS leadership" was conducted. Toner reiterated that the U.S. provided "tactical support to the SDF." |
| Posted by:Fred |