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from the backstabbing-on-the-syrian-front dept.
US to stop arming anti-IS Syrian Kurdish YPG militia - Turkey
The US is to stop supplying arms to the Syrian Kurdish militia the YPG, Turkey has said. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said President Donald Trump had made the promise in a phone call to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The White House said it was making "adjustments" to its support for partners inside Syria but did not explicitly name the YPG.
Turkey has long complained about US support for the group. Washington has viewed the YPG as a key player in the fight against so-called Islamic State (IS), but Ankara brands the group's fighters as terrorists. Turkey says the YPG is as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group it has been fighting for decades in south-eastern Turkey. The US, however, has seen the YPG as distinct from the PKK. In May it announced it would supply arms to the Kurdish elements of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which were poised to drive IS from its stronghold of Raqqa. It had previously armed only Arab elements of the SDF.
Goodbye, Kurdistan?
Also at Reuters, NPR, Daily Sabah, and RT.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Sunday November 26 2017, @01:10PM (1 child)
Correction: Kurds [wikipedia.org] are already mostly Muslims. They just happen to be friendlier to the U.S. [thekurdishproject.org] than most. At least, until we threw them under the bus this week to appease our flaky ally, NATO's resident dictator.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26 2017, @08:51PM
The only thing the Shi'a and Sunni hate more than each other is the Kurds. And for anyone who is unaware, Ataturk's original rebellion and the more recently attempted Turkish Military Coup were in fact about ending religious extremism and racial, religious, political persecution in Turkey.
Go look up 'Michael Israel'. SN&R did an article on him 6+ months back.