MESOP : FRIENDS & FAVORITES & NATO FUTURE – Turkey offers joint Syria operation with U.S., without the Kurds

31 May 2016 – MESOP – Turkey is offering to “join forces” with Washington for a special operation inside Syria on condition it doesn’t include a Syrian Kurdish fighters blacklisted by Ankara but seen as an ally by the US, the foreign minister said.

“If we join forces, they (the US) have their own special forces and we have our special forces,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a small group of journalists at the southern holiday resort of Antalya.

“The subject we are discussing with the Americans is the closure of the Manbij pocket as soon as possible… and the opening of a second front,” he said, referring to a backdoor border route favored by IS for smuggling jihadists into and out of Syria. “We say okay, a second front should be opened but not with the PYD,” he said, referring to the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD :  Cavusoglu said Syrian Arab opposition forces opposing President Bashar al-Assad could be backed up with special forces from Turkey and NATO ally Washington as well as from France, Britain and Germany.”Unfortunately, both Russia and the United States see a terrorist organization as a partner and support it,” he said of the YPG, the armed branch of the PYD. www.mesop.de