[ABCNEWS.GO] The United States risks major damage to its relationship with NATO...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants...
ally
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
if the U.S. includes Kurdish forces in the fight to retake Raqqa, 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....
group's de facto capital, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Thursday.
Turkey and the U.S. are locked in a heated dispute about U.S. plans to liberate Raqqa, with Turkey insisting its own military and allied forces in Syria should mount the fight and that U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds should be excluded.
Though the U.S. has been hoping to include both Turkey and the battle-hardened Kurdish forces, Yildirim insisted Turkey wouldn't be part of any operation including the Syrian Kurdish force known as the YPG, considered by Ankara to be holy warriors who threaten Turkey's security.
"If the U.S. were to prefer terrorist organizations over Turkey in the fight against IS, that would be their own decision, but that wouldn't be something we would consent" to, Yildirim told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
The prime minister also took issue with President Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
's use of the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism" and said "we would be actually happy if our friends were to be a bit more cautious about this issue."
In an earlier exchange with visiting foreign journalists, Yildirim said ties between the two countries would be significantly undermined, though he declined to name any specific steps Turkey -- a member of the U.S.-led coalition fighting IS -- might take in response. In the past, Turkey has hinted it could cut off access to Incirlik air base, home to coalition warplanes.
Though no decision has been formally announced, the U.S. has been sending signals that it is inclined to rely on the Kurdish forces, who have proven the most effective local force at battling IS. U.S. officials have said that Turkey, which has troops in Syria and is aiding other Syrian opposition fighters, has thus far failed to show that it has a force sufficiently large and capable to liberate Raqqa, the largest remaining IS stronghold.