Turkey asks US to ‘completely’ cut ties with PKK/PYD

By Ilkay Guder

ANKARA (AA) - Turkish Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin on Friday called on the U.S. to “completely” cut ties with PKK/PYD terrorist organization.

“The U.S. administration must completely cut ties with terrorist organizations such as PYD/YPG,” Kalin said in a statement.

The PYD and its military wing YPG are Syrian branches of the PKK terrorist network which has waged war against Turkey for more than 30 years and taken thousands of lives.

“Pentagon's statement [on Thursday] said ‘equipment which does not pose a danger would not be retrieved’. Others do not decide who or what threatens our national security, the Turkish Republic does,” he said.

“Since the fight against Daesh is over, the organization should not need these [weapons],” Kalin said. “However, we know that the U.S. has lost track of distributed weapons in Iraq in a similar way. So, these words need to be backed up with concrete steps.”

Kalin said that almost 4,000 truckloads of weapons given to PKK/PYD to fight against Daesh in Syria must be collected without delay.

Kalin said that if the U.S. would not take back the weapons, it would spread permanent instability in the region.

According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry last week, Turkey was promised that Washington would not provide weapons to PKK/PYD terror group anymore in a phone call between Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Donald Trump.

“Giving new weapons will only deepen chaos and instability. It would be impossible to think that we would accept such a scenario”, Kalin added.

According to a Pentagon budget report obtained in early June by Anadolu Agency, the U.S. military provides weapons to the PKK/YPG.

They include 12,000 Kalashnikovs, 6,000 machine guns, 3,500 heavy machine guns, 3,000 U.S. made RPG-7s and 1,000 U.S. made AT-4 or Russian made SPG-9 anti-tank munitions.

Since then, the U.S. has continuously armed the PKK/YPG, which has been heavily criticized by Turkey.