[Published: Tuesday January 08 2019]
 Turkey blasts US support for Kurds
ANKARA 8 Jan (ANA) - Turkey's president has strongly rejected US calls for his country to protect Kurdish fighters in Syria.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said such statements made by US National Security Adviser John Bolton at the weekend were "unacceptable".
Mr Bolton is in Turkey to seek guarantees that Kurds fighting Islamic State (IS) in northern Syria will be safe after a planned US pullout.
Turkey regards the Kurdish YPG militia fighting IS militants as terrorists.
On Tuesday Mr Erdogan told MPs from his AK Party that Turkey could not "accept and swallow" Mr Bolton's message.
He added that the Americans did not know who the YPG and other Kurdish groups were. "If the US evaluates them as 'Kurdish brothers' then they are in a serious delusion," Mr Erdogan said.
Last month US President Donald Trump shocked allies and faced criticism at home when he announced the withdrawal of US forces from Syria, saying that IS had been "defeated".
But over the weekend, at the start of his visit to Israel and Turkey, Mr Bolton said the pullout depended on certain conditions.
The US needed to ensure that the Kurdish fighters were safe and that remnants of IS were defeated, he said.
The YPG is the main component of the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed group that is credited with playing a major role in the fight against IS.
US-Turkish talks in Ankara over the withdrawal of US troops from Syria were expected to be tense after Mr Bolton's comments about the YPG. But no-one really contemplated that President Erdogan would speak in such blunt terms.
Mr Erdogan said it was impossible to swallow Mr Bolton's comments suggesting that Turkey should agree to protect YPG forces as a pre-condition to the withdrawal.
He said Turkey would do whatever it takes to kill terrorists, adding that an operation in the Kurdish controlled area in northern Syria would take place soon.
Ankara sees the YPG as a national security threat. But Washington wants to reassure the Kurds over the Turkish threat, so they don't feel obliged to cosy up to Russia.(ANA)
FA/ANA/8 January 2019---------
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Amnesty/Report