[WASHINGTONTIMES] The war of words between Washington and Ankara over the U.S. military’s partnership with Kurdish paramilitaries in Syria escalated Wednesday, when a senior aide to Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him...
suggested American troops could be targeted alongside their Kurdish allies in the country’s ongoing air war against the militias.
Senior presidential aide Ilnur Cevik said U.S. forces who are teamed up with members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, were in danger of being hit by Turkish fighters patrolling the volatile border region with Syria.
If YPG units and their American military advisers "go too far, our forces would not care if American armor is there, whether armored carriers are there," Mr. Cevik said during an interview on Turkish radio station CRI TURK Wednesday. "All of a sudden, by accident, a few rockets can hit them," he added, referring to partnered U.S. forces.
When asked to clarify that U.S. advisers or artillery positions would be in danger from Turkish warplanes, if they continued to support YPG operations in northern Syria, Mr. Cevik replied bluntly that they would.
His comments come days after U.S. forces moved into the Syrian Kurdish enclave of Rojava, in a dramatic show of solidarity amid Turkish Arclight airstrikes targeting those U.S.-backed forces there. The strikes were part of an ongoing counterterrorism operation targeting members of the YPG, which The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
has condemned as a terrorist organization.
|