Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that Pentagon chief James Mattis at a meeting with him denied information about the creation of “border security forces” in Syria.
“Mattis assured that he personally see to this matter,” quoted Cavusoglu agency Anadolu.
The ministerial meeting was held yesterday in Vancouver, on the margins of the summit on security and stability on the Korean peninsula.
The head of the Turkish Foreign Ministry urged the US to abandon the steps in Syria, which could lead to a crisis in relations with Ankara.
As Cavusoglu reminded, Washington had previously assured Ankara that the self-defense forces of the Syrian Kurds of YPG are not “strategic partners” of the United States, and cooperation with them is temporary – for the sake of fighting the IS militants.
“If you do not consider the YPG – the Syrian wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party – strategic partners, stop supporting them, return the weapons delivered to Syria. Washington even assured us that they had compiled lists of all the weapons handed over to YPG, and subsequently handed over to the arsenals”, Cavusoglu noted.
According to him, Turkey has many reasons to be skeptical about these promises, because the United States has already violated them many times.
This also applies to the withdrawal of YPG forces from Manbijah and the operation in Raqqa.
Last week, the media reported that an international coalition led by the United States began forming “border security forces” of thirty thousand people to protect the zone under its control.
The basis will be Kurdish fighters from the “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDS), whom Ankara regards as terrorists linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party banned in the country.
It was noted that the “border security forces” deployed along the Euphrates River valley – on the western outskirts of Syria, which is controlled by the SDS, as well as along the Iraqi and Turkish borders.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to destroy these formations.