ANKARA (Reuters) – The Turkish Foreign Minister said on Sunday during a visit to Damascus that there was no place for Syrian Kurds in the country's new political organization after the fall of Bashar al Assad.
Speaking alongside new Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, Hakan Fidan said new authorities in Damascus expressed readiness to deal with Islamic State group prisoners held in northeast Syria by the Syrian Democratic Forces (FDS) with a large Kurdish majority, supported by Western countries.
The spearhead of the FDS is made up of the Kurdish YPG militias, an emanation of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has been fighting the Turkish authorities for decades and which is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara but also the United States and the European Union.
Turkey has always refused to allow the YPG to play any political role in Syria and even more so to obtain a form of autonomy, which has motivated its military support for certain Syrian Islamist rebel groups who continue to fight the Kurds in several cities. from northern Syria.
Hakan Fidan expressed confidence that US President-elect Donald Trump would withdraw US troops from Syria after taking office in a month and break the partnership between Washington and the SDF.
He also called on the international community to immediately lift the sanctions imposed on Syria during the era of Bashar al Assad to allow the reconstruction of the country.
(Written by Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara, French version Tangi Salaün)
News
