Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday criticized the United States for weapons deliveries to the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which, according to Erdoğan, are being used against Turkish forces in Syria.
"Thousands of trucks and cargo aircraft packed with weapons have arrived [in Syria]. Against whom [are they intended to be used]? Against Turkey, against whom else … When we tell them [the United States], they reply that they will take weapons back. But we were witnessing this ‘saga’ on the example of Iraq. [US] weapons ended up in the hands of the Kurdistan Workers' Party [PKK]. If [US] allocated at least one-tenth of what they spend on murders of people for humanitarian aid, then I would have no questions," Erdoğan said, aired by Turkey's NTV channel.
Erdoğan yesterday promised new military operations along its border in Syria and Iraq as he presented his election manifesto.
Turkish AKP government is now carrying out an offensive into northern Syria's Afrin region. The Afrin campaign is Turkey's second cross-border operation into Syria during the seven-year-old war.
"In the new term, Turkey will add new operations to the Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations," Erdoğan said in reference to a cross-border offensive in Syria 2016 and to the one in Afrin. "The operations will continue until not one terrorist is left," he said.
The AKP government has previously threatened to push its Afrin offensive against the Kurdish militant YPG further east to Manbij. However, on April 27, the AKP government and Washington have agreed to approve a road map on Syria "to avoid potential confrontation" between the two countries, Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has said after meeting with the new U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Brussels on the occasion of a NATO summit.
