Turkey will strike YPG if it stands on way to Manbij, Turkish FM

The Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that Turkey is determined to strike the PKK’s Syrian offshoot People’s Protection Units (YPG) if the terrorist group stands on Turkey’s way in the operation to free northern Syrian city of Manbij from the yoke of terror.

Cavusoglu said that YPG is as dangerous and hostile as the ISIS terrorist group for Turkey, and that the country would never allow the terrorist group to unite its scattered cantons in northern Syria, referring to YPG’s aim to link up its Afrin Canton in northwestern Syria with the bulk of the territory it occupies in northeastern Syria.

As regards to the operation to free Syria’s Raqqa city from ISIS terrorists, Cavusoglu noted that the US seemed to be undecided and disoriented for the time being.

Turkey reiterated many times that it cannot put up with the presence of an independent terrorist state on its Syrian border.

Operation Euphrates Shield was launched on August 24 to clear Turkey’s Syrian borders from terrorist groups, including the ISIS and the YPG.

In the meantime, Turkey asked several times the US to not cooperate with the YPG-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The US, continuing to run roughshod over the interests of its NATO ally, has so far dismissed the calls to cease its collaboration the YPG terrorist, the Syrian affiliate of the PKK which is officially listed as a terrorist group by the US.