Sever all ties with YPG terror group, Turkey tells US

By Onur Orhan, Sahin Oktay and Emre Ayvaz

SAKARYA, Turkey

Relations between Turkey and the U.S. would improve in every field if the U.S. severed all ties with terror group PYD/YPG, a Turkish deputy prime minister said Thursday.

"The strategic U.S. move that would satisfy Turkey would be to stop considering PYD/YPG as a partner in the region [...] and to cut off all ties completely on the field," Fikri Isik told a televised interview on the private Turkish news channel Haberturk.

"This will pave the way for new developments in the region. It will [also] bring the relations between Turkey and the U.S. to a more positive level in every field," he added.

The U.S. has supported a number of militia groups under the umbrella of the Syrian Democratic Forces, also known as the SDF, including the PYD/YPG, which is considered by Ankara as the Syrian offshoot of the PKK terror group.

Isik said the strategy of supporting the terror group was built during the Obama administration, "but the U.S. has seen that it actually was wrong".

U.S. military support for the YPG/PKK terrorist group in Manbij, Syria, has strained ties between Ankara and Washington and it has led to fears of military clashes between the two NATO allies since there are roughly 2,000 U.S. troops in the city.

On Monday, a Manbij roadmap was announced after a meeting in Washington between Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The deal focuses on the withdrawal of the PKK-affiliated PYD/YPG terror group from the northern Syrian city and on stability in the region.

Qandil operation

On an ongoing military operation against terrorist PKK positions in northern Iraq’s mountainous Qandil region, Isik said: "Turkey has moved from defense to offense in the fight against terrorism."

Airstrikes on PKK targets in northern Iraq, where the terror group has its main base in the Mt. Qandil region, near the Iranian border, have been carried out regularly since July 2015, when the PKK resumed its armed campaign.

In its more than 30-year terrorist campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU -- has been responsible for the death of nearly 40,000 people, including women and children.