US President Donald Trump threatened Turkey with economic devastation if it attacks a US-allied Kurdish militia in Syria, drawing a sharp rebuke from Ankara on Monday and reviving fears of another downturn in ties between the NATO allies, Reuters reported.
Relations between the United States and Turkey have long been strained by Washington’s support for the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey views as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party’ (PKK), which has been waging a decades-long insurgency in Turkey.
Trump said on Sunday the United States was starting the military pullout from Syria that he announced in December but that it would continue to hit Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters there.
“Will attack again from existing nearby base if it reforms. Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds. Create 20 mile safe zone…Likewise, do not want the Kurds to provoke Turkey,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
Ankara is well aware of the cost of strained ties with the United States. A diplomatic crisis last year, when Trump imposed sanctions on two of President Tayyip Erdoğan’s ministers and raised tariffs on Turkish metal exports, helped push the Turkish lira to a record low in August.
The lira as much as 1.6 percent to 5.5450 against the dollar and stood at 5.52 at 1122 GMT on Monday.
Turkish presidential spokesman İbrahim Kalın said Trump should respect Washington’s alliance with Ankara.
“Mr @realDonaldTrump It is a fatal mistake to equate Syrian Kurds with the PKK, which is on the US terrorists list, and its Syria branch PYD/YPG,” spokesman Kalın wrote on Twitter.
“Terrorists can’t be your partners & allies. Turkey expects the US to honor our strategic partnership and doesn’t want it to be shadowed by terrorist propaganda,” he said on Monday.
Trump announced last month he would withdraw US forces from Syria, declaring they had succeeded in their mission to defeat the ISIL group and were no longer needed.
However, US officials have given mixed messages since then. The US-led coalition said on Friday it had started the pullout but officials said later it involved only equipment, not troops.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said Ankara was not against the idea of a secure zone along the border but said strategic partners and allies should not communicate over social media.
“Nothing can be achieved by threatening Turkey economically. We need to look at how we can coordinate together and how we can solve this,” he said in a news conference with Luxembourg’s foreign minister.
The Kurdish YPG has been a US ally in the fight against the jihadists, and it controls swaths of northern Syria. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has vowed to crush it in the wake of Trump’s decision to pull US troops out of the region.
Turkey has swept YPG fighters from Syria’s Afrin region and other areas west of the Euphrates River in military campaigns over the past two years. It is now threatening to strike east of the river, which it has avoided until now — partly to avoid direct confrontation with US forces.
An official from the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of militias led by the YPG, said on Sunday ISIL militants were “living their final moments” in the last enclave they hold near the Iraqi border.