Source: US News & World Report
“Turkey will carry out a cross-border offensive into northeastern Syria against the Kurdish YPG militia if the group does not meet Ankara’s demands, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Tuesday, while adding that Syria’s new rulers must address the issue. Turkey considers the YPG, which spearheads the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), as a terrorist group linked to Kurdish militants waging a decades-old insurgency against the Turkish state. While repeatedly asking its NATO ally Washington to halt its support for the group, Ankara has carried out several incursions against the YPG in the past and controls swathes of territory in northern Syria. Since the ousting of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last month by rebels, some of whom Turkey has supported, Ankara has demanded that the YPG disband, its non-Syrian militants and foreign terrorist fighters leave Syria or are repatriated to their source countries, and its leaders turn themselves in.” (01/07/25)