Turkey expects change in US policy over Syrian Kurds: Defense Minister

ANKARA

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Turkey hopes the new U.S. administration will change its policy of cooperation with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria, Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Işık said on Jan. 12.

He reiterated that he believed the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) was a “terrorist organization.”

“We will continue to say that cooperation with them is not legitimate. We hope [Donald] Trump and his administration will give an ear to Turkey and correct its mistake,” Işık said at an ambassadors’ conference.

He vowed that Turkey would decisively continue cooperating with the alliance. “Turkey’s enhancing relations with Russia do not mean its ties with NATO would weaken. A problem arising from our side has not happened so far, and it will not happen thereafter,” he added.

Yet Ankara maintains its critical stance on the alliance because it believes NATO is failing to deliver support to Turkey. 

He stressed that Ankara had the right to carp NATO states for not extending its support to Turkey’s fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) even though it deployed forces in the region to fight against the group. 

Işık added that U.S.-NATO relations were heading toward ambiguity after the elections in the U.S. and that he considered this as an important issue that would affect the future of the world.