ANKARA, TURKEY — Turkey expects foreign countries will withdraw support for Kurdish fighters in Syria following the toppling of Bashar al-Assad, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, as Ankara seeks to isolate Kurds who have long fought alongside U.S. troops.
Germany’s foreign minister later said Kurdish forces should disarm and integrate into Syria’s national security structure, and Washington’s top diplomat for the Middle East said the U.S. was working on a “managed transition” for the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, in northern Syria.
Speaking to reporters on the flight home from a summit in Egypt on Thursday, Erdogan said there was no longer any reason for outsiders to back Kurdish YPG fighters. His office released his comments Friday.
The Kurdish YPG has been the main force in the alliance, but Turkey considers the group an extension of the PKK, which has long fought the Turkish state and is banned as a terrorist group by Ankara, Washington and the EU.
In his remarks, Erdogan compared the U.S.-backed YPG to Islamic State, and he said neither group had any future in Syria.
“In the upcoming period, we do not believe that any power will continue to collaborate with terrorist organizations. The heads of terrorist organizations such as Islamic State and PKK/YPG will be crushed in the shortest possible time.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said after talks with her Turkish counterpart in Ankara that the security of Kurds was essential for a free Syria, but that Turkey’s security concerns must also be addressed to ensure stability.
“The Kurdish groups must be disarmed and integrated into the national security structure,” she said.
Barbara Leaf, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, told reporters after visiting Damascus on Friday that Washington was working with Ankara and the SDF to find “a managed transition in terms of SDF’s role in that part of the country.”
“The conditions which led Kurds in northeast Syria to organize themselves and to defend themselves as they did were one set of conditions, and things have really changed in a very dramatic fashion,” Leaf said.
The United States said this week that it has 2,000 troops on the ground in Syria working alongside the YPG-led alliance known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. The SDF played a major role on the ground defeating Islamic State militants in 2014-17 with U.S. air support and still guards Islamist fighters in prison camps.
Ankara, alongside Syrian allies, has mounted several cross-border offensives against the YPG-led SDF in northern Syria, while repeatedly demanding that its NATO ally Washington halt support for the fighters.
Hostilities have escalated since Assad was toppled less than two weeks ago, with Turkey and Syrian groups it backs seizing the city of Manbij from the SDF on Dec. 9, prompting the United States to broker a fragile ceasefire.
Erdogan told reporters that Turkey wanted to see a new Syria in which all ethnic and religious groups can live in harmony. To achieve this, “Islamic State, the PKK and its versions which threaten the survival of Syria need to be eradicated,” he said.
“The PKK terrorist organization and its extensions in particular have reached the end of their lifespan,” Erdogan added.
On Thursday, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi told Reuters that Kurdish fighters from outside Syria who had joined the group’s ranks would leave if a truce were agreed with Turkey, long one of Ankara’s major demands.
In his remarks, Abdi acknowledged for the first time that Kurdish fighters from other countries – including PKK members – had been assisting the SDF, but he said they would no longer be needed under a truce.
A Turkish Defense Ministry official said there was no talk of a ceasefire between Turkey and the SDF, adding that Ankara would continue taking counterterrorism measures until “the PKK/YPG lays down its arms and its foreign fighters leave Syria.”
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