Turkish President Erdogan says Syrian Kurdish militiamen will be buried if they don’t lay down their weapons
ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that the Turkish-backed militants in Syria had no control over the country amid hostilities between Turkey-backed Syrian militants since the fall of Bashar al-Assad this month. The Kurdish militants either laid down their weapons or were “buried”.
Since Assad’s ouster, Ankara has repeatedly insisted that the Kurdish YPG must be disbanded, claiming the group has no place in Syria’s future. A change in Syria’s leadership has left the country’s main Kurdish faction in a difficult position.
“The separatist murderers will either say goodbye to their weapons or they will be buried with their weapons on Syrian soil,” Erdogan told lawmakers from his ruling Justice and Development Party in parliament.
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“We will root out the terrorist groups that are trying to weave a wall of blood between us and our Kurdish brothers,” he added.
Turkey views the Kurdish YPG militia – the main component of the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militia, which has been targeting Turkey since 1984. The government launched a rebellion.
The PKK is designated a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union. Ankara has repeatedly called on its NATO ally Washington and other countries to stop supporting the YPG.
Previously, the Turkish Defense Ministry stated that its armed forces killed 21 YPG-PKK militants in northern Syria and Iraq.
In an interview with Reuters last week, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi acknowledged for the first time the presence of PKK militants in Syria and said they had helped fight the Islamic State and would be freed if a comprehensive ceasefire was reached with Turkey. will return home, which is Ankara’s core demand.
He denies any organizational ties to the PKK.
Erdogan also said Turkey would soon open a consulate in Aleppo, adding that Ankara expected increased traffic at its borders next summer as some of the millions of Syrian migrants it hosts begin to return.
(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Ece Toksabay and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
