US needs to withdraw from Syria's Manbij region immediately: Turkish FM

ANTALYA

The United States needs to withdraw from northern Syria's Manbij region immediately, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Jan. 27.

President Tayyip Erdoğan on Jan. 26 had said Turkish forces would sweep Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia from the Syrian border and could push all the way east to the frontier with Iraq, including Manbij.

Speaking to reporters, Çavuşoğlu also said Turkey wanted to see concrete steps by the United States to end its support for the YPG militia.

“We want to see more concrete steps rather than words. The U.S. must cut ties with the terrorist organization,” Çavuşoğlu told reporters before a meeting in the Mediterranean province of Antalya.       

Ankara said earlier it had been told by U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster that Washington would not provide the YPG with weapons anymore.