Pentagon 'not listening' to Trump 'concerns Turkey'

By Diyar Guldogan

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey on Thursday called on the Pentagon to heed U.S. President Donald Trump's pledge not to arm PKK/PYD terrorists in Syria.

"U.S. President Trump told our president [Recep Tayyip Erdogan] on the phone that 'from now on no arms will be given to YPG'," Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, using an alternative acronym for the PKK/PYD.

The minister's remarks came at a news conference with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov and Pakistan's foreign minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, in the Azerbaijani capital Baku.

In a telephone call with Erdogan last Friday, the U.S. leader promised to halt arms supplies to the PKK/PYD, the Syrian branch of the PKK, which has waged a terror campaign against Turkey since 1984.

"We do not interfere in U.S.' internal affairs, but if the Pentagon is not listening to its own president, then it ultimately concerns us," Cavusoglu said. "Because the weapons given them are a threat to us."

Cavusoglu said that the words of the president should be heeded.

"As Turkey, we give great importance to this. We keep every promise we make," he said.

He added that Turkey would not hesitate to enter Syria's Afrin province or elsewhere if threatened, just as it had done previously. Last year, Turkey launched Euphrates Shield, a cross-border military operation to clear the Turkish-Syrian border region of Daesh terrorists.