Turkey wants the U.S. to rethink its support for the Syrian Kurds

Turkey’s leaders, including President Tayyip Erdogan, have said that they want the US to rethink its backing for Kurdish militants in Syria. Erdogan has also brought up the idea of a new cross-border offensive.

In an interview with the Milliyet newspaper on Monday, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said, “We are always reminding our American counterparts that they need to stop working with the terrorist group in Syria.”

“We have more contacts on this issue now.” “We can see that the U.S. side also wants more talks and negotiations,” he said.

Erdogan said on Sunday that Turkey could launch a new attack into northern Syria to make new safe zones along its border. On Friday, he said that he and President-elect Trump would talk about the possibility of withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria.

Turkey-U.S. relations are strained because the U.S. backs the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which is Washington’s main partner in the fight against Islamic State in Syria. Ankara calls it a terrorist organization and an extension of the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party, which is illegal in Turkey. The US also calls the PKK a terror group.

Turkey, a NATO member, has carried out several operations across the border against the YPG in the past few years and has since promised to do more.

He said on Sunday that these actions had created safe zones in Syria that had “thwarted attempts to surround” the country from the south, and that Turkey was set on “completely cutting off contact between terrorist organizations.”

“God willing, we will complete the missing links of the safe zone we have established along our borders in coming period,” he stated.

In the past few months, Erdogan has also tried to fix relations with the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which had been cut off after ten years of hostility.

After Erdogan said in July that he wanted to meet with Assad for talks, Ankara has said that Damascus has not reciprocated its efforts to get along. Assad said those efforts have failed and that Damascus wants Turkish troops to leave Syrian territory.