Turkiye’s Erdogan slams NATO allies’ support for YPG in Syria

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has criticised his NATO allies for their support of the country’s “counterterrorism efforts” against the People’s Defense Units (YPG) which Ankara says is the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK).

“You can see that the weapons reluctantly given to our country by our allies are found in the separatist terrorist organisation’s shelters,” Erdogan said in a statement following a Cabinet Meeting yesterday.

The statement echoed Erdogan’s address to the NATO leaders’ summit last week, marking the alliance’s 75th anniversary, during which he condemned the relations some members have fostered with the YPG.

“We cannot accept the distorted relationship that some of our allies have established with the PYD-YPG, the Syrian extension of the PKK terrorist organisation,” he said on X on Friday.

“We cannot let others restrict us to their limited frameworks. We do not turn our back to the East in favour of the West, nor do we disregard the West in favour of the East,” he explained.

The Turkish president also called for peaceful resolutions to conflicts through negotiation and mutual dialogues, expressing that it is “beneficial to open the clenched fists.”

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