Turkey summons US ambassador over Syrian Kurdish forces spat

Turkey says the YPG is affiliated with the Kurdish PKK movement, which has waged a long and bloody insurgency in southeast Turkey.

Separately, military sources said the army seized up to 15 kg of explosives and four suicide-bomber vests when it detained 34 people trying to cross into Turkey from an area in Syria under Islamic State control.

US airstrikes helped PYD/YPG forces end an ISIS siege of Kobane a year ago, in one of most important successes against the jihadist group.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, said this figure included at least 100 civilians. “Are you together with us or are you with the PYD and YPG terror groups?”

Mr. Erdogan told reporters on his presidential plane in remarks published last week that the dispute undermined Turkish confidence in the U.S. “How can we trust [you]?” he said.

He said Turkey and its partners did not object to Russian Federation targetting militant groups such as Islamic State and the Nusra Front, but said Moscow should do so in coordination with the U.S.-led coalition.

The U.S. has expressed concerns to the YPG, the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), of the group possibly coming into conflict with U.S. backed opposition forces in Syria, a spokesman said Thursday.

“You haven’t had a grasp of the nature of the groups before now, and that’s why the region is a sea of blood“.

“Since you refuse to recognize (as a terrorist organization, Ed), the area turned into a pool of blood“, Erdogan launched at the Americans, during a speech in Ankara in front of local officials. “We are making preparations for it”, Erdoğan told the audience in Ankara.

Turkey has summoned the U.S. ambassador to “convey unease” a day after the U.S. State Department spokesman said that, unlike Turkey, Washington doesn’t recognize Syrian Kurdish forces as “terrorists”.

Erdoğan said Turkey had already spent some $9bn (€8bn) on hosting the refugees since Syria’s nearly half decade civil war began.

“However, we do consider the PKK a foreign terrorist organisation and continue to be very firm about our desire to see their terrorist attacks on Turkish citizens cease”, he said.

Daily Sabah also quotes Erdogan as slamming the United Nations for failing to tackle the migrant crisis and for its “insincere” approach to it, underlining Ankara’s patience is wearing thin.

BEIRUT (AP) — An opposition activist group and a rebel say Kurdish fighters and their allies have captured a military air base in northern Syria.

In Moscow, Konashenkov also said that since February 4, Russian warplanes carried out 510 combat missions and destroyed 888 “terrorist facilities” in several Syrian provinces including Aleppo, Daraa and Latakia where the government offensive is concentrated.