Turkey won’t permit PKK in northern Syria: PM

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

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Turkey is taking all possible measures to scuttle cooperation between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said. “We won’t allow a terrorist organization to [set up] bases in northern Syria.

“We won’t allow a terrorist organization to become an element of threat against our country,” Erdoğan told reporters yesterday that prior to his departure for the inauguration of the London Olympics. “We won’t [tolerate] imaginary maps produced through the cooperation of the PYD and the PKK.”Another round of security meetings on Syria was held in the Foreign Ministry yesterday, headed by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, with the participation of intelligence chief Hakan Fidan and second chief of General Staff Hulusi Akar. Turkey will not simply be an onlooker to any solidarity between the PKK and the PYD, Erdoğan said.

Action against terror

“It is out of question for us to tolerate a formation of the terrorist organization in northern Syria and to permit the presence of a threat to Turkey there. … Our Armed Forces and all related units are working on the matter,” he said. “Nobody should try to threaten us. We won’t be deceived by certain provocations, but if there is a need for steps against the terror organization, I’ll clearly say that we will take that step,” Erdoğan said. Turkey does not want Syria’s territorial integrity to be disturbed, or the beginning of clashes based on sects or ethnic groups, he added. “Northern Syria includes not only Kurdish brothers and sisters but also Turks and Arabs. All together, they make up the northern Syria region,” he said. Asked about the possibility of a buffer zone in northern Syria, Erdoğan said it was among the alternatives but added that priorities would be made according to the ongoing process.