We Hope That This Ongoing Mistake in the Region Will Come to an End: Fidan

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan announced on Sunday that he hopes U.S. President Donald Trump will end Washington's cooperation with the Kurdish YPG group in Syria, Reuters reports.

The Turkish Ministry of Defense stated that the 23 militants killed by Turkish forces in northern Syria belonged to the YPG militia and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Turkey considers PKK and YPG to be the same, whereas the United States views them as distinct groups, designating PKK as a terrorist organization while engaging YPG as its primary ally in the fight against ISIS in Syria.

“We hope that Mr. Trump will make a decision that will put an end to this ongoing mistake in the region,” Fidan said at a press conference in Doha alongside his Qatari counterpart. He noted that YPG is incapable of fighting against ISIS and has merely played a role in holding the group’s prisoners in custody, adding that Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Jordan have held preliminary talks to combat ISIS.

Turkey has long called on Washington to cease support for YPG, while Turkish troops and their allies have repeatedly clashed with Kurdish militants in Syria since the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad in December. Turkey has declared that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the U.S.-backed group that includes Kurdish YPG, must be disarmed; otherwise, it will face military intervention. During the administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden, the United States had around 2,000 servicemen in Syria fighting alongside SDF and YPG.