MADRID Dec. 14 () –
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has demanded that Syrian Kurdish militias expel from their ranks members of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) that Ankara links to the armed organization of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. (PKK), considered by the Turkish authorities as a terrorist group.
Right now there is in Syria, after the fall last weekend of the regime of former president Bashar al Assad, an open conflict between the militia of the Syrian National Army (SNA), backed by Turkey, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the coalition Kurdish-Arab militias that have one of their most prominent elements in the YPG.
In an interview with the NTV channel collected last night by the Turkish media, Fidan proposes the expulsion of the leaders and members of the YPG as an unappealable condition to stop the clashes. “The elimination of the YPG is Turkey’s strategic objective, and a ‘Syrian branch’ of the PKK has no place in the future of this country,” he warned.
In political terms, Fidan has predicted that any power structure that emerges after the fall of Al Assad will not recognize either the YPG or the so-called Kurdish administration of northeastern Syria, Rojava. “What they will do is recover their land and their sovereignty,” he said.
The Turkish minister nevertheless wanted to emphasize that the Kurdish people are not responsible for the actions of the YPG. “What we want is a Syria free of terrorism, where minorities are not discriminated against,” he said.
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