Erdoğan criticizes US for weapons sent to SDF in Syria

ISTANBUL

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has criticized the United States for its support of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), arguing that the weapons the U.S. provided in Syria “have ended up in Turkey.”

“The weapons that have been distributed to the organizations in the name of the fight against Daesh [the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] in Syria and Iraq have been withheld in the attacks that the PKK [outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s Party] have operated in Turkey,” Erdoğan said on Aug. 20. 

“We know which country’s weapons are in the hands of the PKK, the YPG [Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units], the PYD [Democratic Union Party] or Daesh,” he added.

As Turkey deems the YPG and PYD as a Syrian offshoot of the outlawed PKK, the issue is a matter of the dispute between Ankara and Washington since the U.S. is supporting the Kurdish forces within the anti-ISIL coalition. 

“There are more than a thousand trucks that have come from Iraq to Syria. They were delivered to terrorist organizations in Syria. Now they reportedly use them in Syria. Then, they will be used against Turkey,” he said. 

“We have informed the U.S. President Donald Trump. ‘What will you do with those weapons?’ we have asked. We want them to be taken back,” Erdoğan added.