Tensions between Turkey and US-backed Kurdish militias in control of northern areas of Syria approached boiling point on Tuesday after the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's threat of imminent military action to secure the border area was met with a defiant message from Kurdish groups that they would stand their ground.
Erdogan, Turkey's hardline leader, told lawmakers from his Justice and Development Party (AKP) that military action against the YPG (People's Protection Units) militias, which Ankara regards as a terrorist organisation, could begin within the next two days, Efe news agency reported.
"Neither those who appear to be our allies but stab us in the back, nor those who support terrorism can stop this," Erdogan said, insisting that he would not consult US President Donald Trump on this military initiative but rather Russia's leader Vladimir Putin, whose country is a co-signatory in a Syria peace deal that also involved Iran.
The escalation in military rhetoric from Turkey came after the US-led coalition in Syria announced military blueprints to establish a 30,000-strong border force composed primarily of YPG fighters, the largest group inside the ethnically-mixed Syrian Democratic Forces umbrella group that administers the de facto Kurdish territories of Manbij and Afrin in northern Syria.
Reacting to the warnings coming from Ankara, a YPG spokesman in Afrin province told Efe via telephone that military preparations were underway to protect the region from any Turkish-led attack.
Afrin province, tucked up in northwestern Syria, remained cut off from Kurdish-controlled regions further east as a result of a Turkish-led military invasion in 2016 that sought to push back fighters from the Islamic State terror group as well as prevent the creation of a Kurdish-controlled corridor along the border.
The row over the YPG's role in Syria, being the US' principal ally in the campaign against the IS, threatened to further damage already fragile relations between Washington and Ankara, the largest and second-largest NATO allies in terms of active personnel.
"How is it possible that the US can weaponise an army from so many thousands of kilometres away," Erdogan asked rhetorically, adding that NATO must make its stance clear on the matter.
Turkey considers the YPG to be indistinguishable from the PKK Kurdish guerrillas who for decades have waged a low-scale civil war in eastern Turkey.
Within the context of Syria's civil war, Turkey has offered its backing to moderate rebels from the Free Syrian Army, while Russia and Iran support the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
--IANS
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