Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş said on Thursday that “a good part” of the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) have withdrawn from the Syrian city of Manbij.
Speaking during an interview on the state-run TRT Haber on Thursday, Kurtulmuş said Turkey’s ongoing operations in Syria’s al-Bab and Manbij cities were matters of national security unrelated to the situation in Aleppo.
Turkey has repeatedly insisted that the Syrian Kurdish YPG should quit Manbij, something that both the YPG and the United States said has already happened.
Turkey considers the YPG, the armed wing of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria, to be linked to the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and deems both groups terrorist organizations.