Ankara has repeatedly insisted that the Kurdish YPG militia must be disbanded and called on the United States to end its support.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that Kurdish fighters in Syria will either lay down their weapons or be “buried” amid hostilities between Turkish-backed Syrian rebels and other armed groups since the overthrow of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad earlier this month. become .
After al-Assad’s fall on December 8, Ankara has repeatedly insisted that the Kurdish YPG militia must be disbanded, saying the group has no place in Turkey Syria’s future.
The change in Syria’s leadership has left the country’s main Kurdish factions on the back foot.
“The separatist murderers will either say goodbye to their weapons, or they will be buried together with their weapons in Syrian land,” Erdogan told lawmakers from his ruling AK Party in parliament on Wednesday.
“We will eradicate the terrorist organization that seeks to build a wall of blood between us and our Kurdish brothers and sisters,” he added.
Turkiye views the YPG militia – the main component of the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militia. led an uprising against the Turkish state since 1984.
The PKK is classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. Ankara has called again and again called on its NATO ally Washington and others to stop supporting the YPG.
Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Istanbul, said this was not a surprising statement from Erdogan “as it is the official rhetoric of the Turkish government.”
Since the YPG is considered “the Syrian branch of the PKK,” Ankara believes they should either lay down arms or fight and then be defeated, Koseoglu said.
Earlier, the Turkish Defense Ministry said the armed forces had killed 21 YPG-PKK militants in northern Syria and Iraq.
SDF commander Mazloum Abdi confirmed the presence of PKK fighters in Syria for the first time last week, saying they had helped fight ISIL (also known as ISIS) militants and would return home if a full ceasefire was reached with Turkiye would be agreed, a core demand of Ankara.
He denied any organizational connection to the PKK.
Erdogan also said that Turkiye would soon open its consulate in Aleppo, adding that Ankara expects an increase in traffic at its borders in the summer of next year as some of the millions of Syrian migrants it hosts begin to return to their homes to return.
