Turkey has accused the United States of being two-faced for continuing to support the YPG, a Kurdish militia group fighting in Syria.
ADVERTISEMENTTurkey has accused the United States of being two-faced for continuing to support the YPG, a Kurdish militia group fighting in Syria.
Turkey regards the YPG as the Syrian arm of the PKK, considered a terrorist group by both the US and Ankara.
To add further fuel to the fire US troops have been seen wearing YPG insignia.
DoD orders US troops in Syria to stop wearing Kurdish YPG militia patchhttps://t.co/puXv7PTJLnpic.twitter.com/NP3hYIlgAZ
— Andrew Tilghman (
andrewtilghman) <a href="https://twitter.com/andrewtilghman/status/736263571710038016">27 mai 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <b></b>Col. Steven Warren, from Operation Inherent Resolve, said the problem has been resolved: "The fact of the matter is, you know, it's not authorised. So in this case, you know, they were directed to remove the patches. As far as any additional reprimands or anything like that, I'm not aware. But, the bottom line and the important thing is, that the situation's been corrected, and that we have communicated to our allies that such conduct was inappropriate and it was unauthorised." <b></b> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="fr"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Turkey slams US after US soldier pictured wearing YPG uniform in Syria <a href="https://t.co/KalHtw0LbH">https://t.co/KalHtw0LbH</a> <a href="https://t.co/sYJcrXT7jp">pic.twitter.com/sYJcrXT7jp</a></p>— Middle East Eye (MiddleEastEye) 27 mai 2016
The Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu vented his country’s anger: “Our suggestion to them is that they should also wear Daesh, al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda insignias during their operations in other regions of Syria. They can also wear the Boko Haram insignia when they go to Africa, but they don`t see YPG in the same way as the other terrorist groups.”
The YPG is the most powerful Kurdish Syrian militia backed by the US, currently engaged in fighting ISIL close to the groups de-facto capital Raqqa.