Turkey vows to ‘drown’ US-backed Syrian Kurdish force
BEIRUT — Turkey’s president on Monday denounced U.S. plans to form a 30,000-strong Kurdish-led border security force in Syria, vowing to “drown this army of terror before it is born,” as Russia and Syria also rejected the idea.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also warned U.S. troops against coming between Turkish troops and Kurdish forces, which Ankara views as an extension of Turkey’s own Kurdish insurgency.
Turkey has been threatening to launch a new military operation against the main Syrian Kurdish militia, known as the People’s Defence Units, or YPG, in the Kurdish-held Afrin enclave in northern Syria. The YPG is the backbone of a Syrian force that drove the Islamic State group from much of northern and eastern Syria with the help of U.S.-led airstrikes.
Russia has also warned that the nascent U.S. force threatens to fuel tensions around Afrin.