Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Kurdish militias in Syria on Wednesday to either lay down their arms or be “buried.” On the same day, the Turkish military said it killed 21 Kurdish militants in northern Syria and Iraq – including members of the People’s Defense Units (YPG), the leading Syrian Kurdish force allied with the United States against the Islamic State.
Erdogan and other Turkish officials have adamantly insisted for years that the YPG is allied with, or merely a branch of, the violent separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PKK is banned in Turkey and classified as a terrorist organization by many other nations, including the United States.
Most other countries, however, regard the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia as a separate entity from the PKK. The YPG holds a leadership role in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which was instrumental in the fight against ISIS and remains a U.S. ally.
Erdogan repeated Turkey’s view that the YPG and PKK are one and the same in remarks to members of his ruling AKP party on Wednesday.
“The separatist murderers will either bid farewell to their weapons, or they will be buried in Syrian lands along with their weapons,” he said. […]
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