The commander of a Kurdish-led force in Syria denied links to a deadly attack near Ankara claimed by militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) after retaliatory Turkish strikes on Kurdish-held Syria killed more than a dozen people, Agence France-Presse reported.
Turkey carried out airstrikes against targets linked to Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria after Wednesday’s shooting and suicide attack that killed five people at a defense contractor near the Turkish capital.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the attackers infiltrated from neighboring Syria, vowing there would be no letup in the fight against Kurdish militants.
“We opened an internal investigation, and I can confirm that none of the attackers entered Turkey from Syrian territory,” Mazloum Abdi, head of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), told AFP.
The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded fighting against the Islamic State group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019.
It is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), viewed by Ankara as an offshoot of the PKK, which claimed the attack in Ankara.
“We have no connection to the attack that took place in Ankara,” Abdi said late Saturday from Hasakeh, a major city run by the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration in northeast Syria.
“Our battlefields are inside Syrian territory,” he added.
Turkish strikes on Kurdish-held Syria since Wednesday have killed 15 civilians and two fighters, according to Abdi.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group, said Turkey has launched more than 100 strikes, most of them using drones, since Wednesday.
It said civilian infrastructure including bakeries, grain silos and power stations were hit along with military facilities and checkpoints used by Kurdish forces.
“It seems that [Turkey’s] goal is not just to respond to the events that took place in Ankara, but also to target institutions and sources of livelihood for the population,” said Abdi.
“The main goal is to weaken and eliminate the [semi] autonomous administration, forcing the population to migrate,” he said.
‘Weak’ US response
Abdi said he was open to dialogue to de-escalate tensions but demanded an end to Turkey’s attacks, which he said are “ongoing” and suggest a potentially wider operation.
“We are ready to resolve issues with Turkey through dialogue, but not under the pressure of attacks, so these operations must be stopped for efforts at dialogue to continue,” Abdi said.
Turkish troops and allied rebel factions control swaths of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of them targeting the SDF.
“The Turkish state is taking advantage of the current events in the Middle East, as attention is directed towards Gaza, Lebanon and the Israeli attack on Iran” to launch new attacks on Syria, Abdi said.
Abdi criticized his US allies for not protecting Kurdish forces, saying the position of the US-led coalition “seems weak.”
The United States has about 900 troops in Syria as part of an anti-jihadist coalition.
“Their response is not at the level required to stop the attacks, and pressure must be put on Turkey,” he added, saying the strikes on Syria “not only concern us but also affect their forces.”
The US presidential election on November 5 could also weaken support for the SDF if Donald Trump is elected, according to Abdi.
Trump announced a decision in 2019 to withdraw thousands of US troops from Kurdish-held Syria, paving the way for Turkey to launch an invasion there that same year.
“In 2019 we had an unsuccessful experience with the administration of US President Trump,” said the SDF commander.
“But we are confident that the United States … makes its decisions based on” strategic interests in the region.