Turkey remains skeptical toward US pledge to stop arming YPG
Ankara said ending Washington arms deliveries to the PKK-affiliated YPG in Syria is not enough, and highlighted the importance of also retrieving the weapons given to the terrorist group. Experts say the U.S. move is not fully convincing and needs to be tracked
Ankara reiterated that the U.S. needs to keep its recent pledge and cease arms deliveries to the PKK’s Syrian affiliate the Democratic Union Party’s (PYD) People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia. Experts highlighted that President Donald Trump’s promise is far from fully convincing as Washington has previously failed in this respect. In a televised interview yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ said, “The U.S. president’s remarks of ‘we will not give weapons’ is of the utmost importance, but it will lose value if it is not implemented.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Trump talked over the phone on Friday, and Trump said the U.S. would no longer deliver weapons to the YPG. Trump’s promise was welcomed by Turkish officials who said Ankara expects the necessary steps to be taken in line with this promise. “Trump said the weapons given to the YPG will be retrieved after the fight against Daesh ends,” Bozdağ said, adding that Turkey will monitor the implementation of these promises.
Commenting on Trump’s remarks, Can Acun, a Middle East expert at the Ankara-based Foundation for Political Economic and Social Research (SETA) said: “The U.S. has not kept any of its promises to Turkey in Syria so far.” Stressing that the ongoing YPG presence in Manbij is an example of that, Acun said it should be questioned how reliable Trump’s promise to Ankara is.
Acun pointed to the U.S. support to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) rather than to the YPG. “The U.S. sent weapons in the name of the SDF rather than the YPG. It could continue like this,” he said, adding that Ankara should not determine its policy based on the U.S.’s promises.
Touching on the possible reasons why Washington felt compelled to make such a promise to Ankara, Acun said that Washington has been disturbed by Ankara’s political engagements with Tehran and Moscow.
“The U.S. might make some moves to lure Turkey to its side. It is too early to call whether there is a political will in Washington for a change to collaboration with the YPG,” Acun said. “We should wait and see.”
Answering a question about why the Trump administration has given unrealizable promises to Turkey, academic Dr. Bora Bayraktar from Istanbul Kültür University said that they had to give this promises to keep Turkey on their side after last week’s Sochi meeting. “Last week, President Erdoğan had a historic meeting with Iranian and Russian counterparts in Sochi, and you can be sure that the picture of these leaders [together] irritated Western capitals including, Washington,” he said. “Trump realized that they may lose Turkey if they continue their Syria policy that Turkey has been against. All the Western alliance may lose in the Middle East if they don’t keep Turkey on their side. That’s why Trump called Erdoğan,” he said.
Bayraktar added that Washington would not be able to keep its promises about the YPG. “Trump’s promise to withdraw weapons from YPG terrorists in Syria is not realistic,” he said. “If you look at statements from the Pentagon even after the Trump-Erdoğan phone call, they claim that they did not receive such instructions about the YPG weapons. So, I personally don’t believe that Trump will be able fulfill his promises to Erdoğan.”
Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım on Sunday also said Turkey expects an “immediate end” to Washington’s cooperation with the YPG as Trump promised and to start working again with its “actual ally.”
“Since the beginning, we voiced the impropriety of working with PKK-affiliated groups in our fight against Daesh in Syria, but they always asserted that it was not a choice but only a solution. Since Daesh was defeated, this obligation no longer exists,” he said.
The U.S. providing weapons to the YPG has been adversely affecting relations between the two countries. While the U.S. insists that supporting the YPG is the only option to defeat Daesh, Ankara says an alternative can be found with local Arab tribes backed by countries in the region instead of supporting and arming one terrorist group against another.
Source:dailysabah.com