US move to freeze funds for YPG/PKK-held areas ‘right’

By Aziz Aslan and Sukru Gunduz

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (AA) – The U.S. freezing funds for recovery in areas of Syria still held by YPG/PKK or Daesh terrorists was the right decision, although belated, Turkey’s foreign minister said on Sunday.

Mevlut Cavusoglu’s statement came when talking to journalists alongside the governor of Diyarbakir, a southeastern province near Syria, adding that outside of terrorist-held areas, the more than half-a-million displaced Syrian Kurds deserve financial aid.

“This money should be spent to provide better standards to the people living in regions liberated from Daesh. Only then we can stabilize these cities in Syria,” he said.

“Most of them are Kurds who were exiled by the YPG. But they are not only Kurds, but also Arabs, Ezidis, Assyrians, and Turkmens,” said Cavusoglu, explaining that recovery aid money needs to be spent on these people.

On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly ordered the State Department to freeze more than $200 million in funds for recovery efforts in areas of Syria held by the terrorist YPG/PKK.

On reports France might send forces to Manbij, Syria to support the terrorist YPG/PKK there, Cavusoglu said France had denied these reports more than once.

“We are facing a country that doesn’t know what it says and is confused about what to do,” he said, adding France has become a country that cannot speak out about the truth it knows.

-'Don't act on the words of terrorists'

Turkey reacted sharply last Thursday after French President Emanuel Macron hosted a terrorist PYD/PKK-led SDF delegation at the Elysee Palace and suggested that Paris could “mediate” between Turkey and the terrorist group.

Cavusoglu said that in a phone call with his French counterpart on the issue, he said they could help the people of Afrin together.

“Don’t act based on the words of a few YPG/PKK terrorists. What are the people there saying? You should listen to that,” he told Jean-Yves Le Drian during their phone conversation.

Meeting with the terrorist PYD/PKK-led SDF delegation, Macron claimed that the SDF has “no operational link with this terrorist group,” meaning the PKK.

However, as Turkey has documented, the PYD/PKK and SDF are actually the Syrian branches of the terrorist PKK, recognized by Turkey, France, and the EU as a terrorist group.

In its 30-year terrorist campaign against Turkey, the PKK has taken some 40,000 lives.

Ankara has warned against international actors cooperating with such groups as the PYD/PKK, YPG/PKK, and SDF/PKK, as they are just the PKK under different names.

In its ongoing Operation Olive Branch, Turkey has targeted PYD/PKK and Daesh terrorists in Afrin, Syria, just across Turkey's southern border.