Ankara:

US' Recent Statements over "Border Army" Plan Not Satisfactory for Turkey

TEHRAN (defapress)- Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stressed that all the recent statements from the United States regarding plans of a "border army" in Syria are not satisfactory for Ankara.

News ID: 68144

Date: 18 January 2018 - 16:00

Cavusoglu​ told broadcaster CNN Turk in an interview on Thursday that Turkey would intervene in Afrin and Manbij to counter the YPG and that its mistrust of Washington continues.

He said that the US must retake the weapons given to the PKK/YPG group and completely end its cooperation with the terrorists, adding that "We wouldn't want to see any allies there".

Turkish FM's comments come after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday that he had met with Cavusoglu​ to clarify the issue and said it had been "misportrayed, misdescribed."

"That entire situation has been misportrayed, misdescribed, some people misspoke. We are not creating a border security force at all," Tillerson told reporters on his way back from giving a speech at Stanford University in California.

It comes as Ankara announced that Turkey is ready “at any moment” to start an operation in a besieged border area of Syria.

“The Turkish Armed Forces will resolve the Afrin and Manbij issue as soon as possible. Our preparations are finalized, an operation may start at any moment,” Tukey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told an opening ceremony in the capital, Ankara on Monday.

The US-led coalition announced on Sunday it is helping to create a new Border Security Force to fight terrorists in Syria. The unit, stationed along the Syrian border with Iraq and Turkey, as well as along the Euphrates River Valley, is expected to be comprised of up to 30,000 people. SDF veterans will make half of the unit, while the other half are yet to be recruited.

Damascus, Moscow, Tehran and Ankara have strongly blasted the US new decision to form a Border Security Force.

The United States' military support for the militia first began under the administration of US President Donald Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, which provided Kurds with weapons and training.

Washington also continues providing Kurdish fighters with more military hardware in Syria despite US President's promise to his Turkish counterpart to halt arms shipment to the Kurdish fighters.

Ankara said late November 2017 that Trump told Erdogan that he had issued instructions that weapons should not be provided to Kurdish fighters in Syria.

According to reports, the US plans to keep its troops in Syria long after the defeat of ISIL. Washington has been justifying its deployment of ground troops in Syria, which violates the embattled nation’s sovereignty, by citing the need to fight ISIL.