January 06, 2017•Update: January 07, 2017
NEW YORK
Ankara considers the U.S. arming the YPG “intolerable” because the terror group poses a great threat to Turkey, that country’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Friday.
"It is even so hard to accept a terror supporter country as an ally," Cavusoglu said at a press conference in New York.
The YPG is an affiliate of the PKK terrorist organization that is fighting Turkey. "Terrorists arrive Turkey from YPG camps as suicide bombers and carry out attacks,” he said.
"There have been at least four to five attacks against Turkey over the past year and the terrorists who perpetrated those attacks were trained in YPG camps.”
The YPG is the armed branch of the PYD – the Syrian offshoot of the PKK that is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S., and the EU.
According to Turkey, the YPG and PYD are terrorist organizations are also terrorists outfits as they are affiliates of the PKK.
The U.S., however, considers the YPG/PYD a "reliable partner" on the ground in Syria and continues to support it in the field.
The terrorist group currently operates in northern Syria and controls the majority of the area near the Turkish border.
*Reporting by Mustafa Keles & Betul Yuruk; Writing by Burcu Arik
