AQABA: US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Thursday that the role of a Washington-backed Kurdish-led force was “critical” to preventing a resurgence of Islamic State jihadists in Syria following Bashar al-Assad’s ouster.
“At a time when we want to see this transition… to a better way forward for Syria, part of that also has to be ensuring that ISIS doesn’t rear its ugly head again,” Blinken said on a visit to Jordan, referring to the Islamic State (IS) group.
“Critical to making sure that doesn’t happen are the so-called SDF — the Syrian Democratic Forces,” he added.
Blinken’s remarks came just before he boarded a flight to Turkey, which backs some of SDF’s rivals and where he was to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the second leg of his Syria crisis tour.
Washington has long backed the SDF as a key ally in the fight against IS, with its forces spearheading an offensive that defeated the group’s self-declared caliphate in Syria in 2019.
But its support for the SDF — the de facto army of the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration that controls much of Syria’s northeast — has put it sharply at odds with Ankara.
Turkey views the force as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that has led a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state, effectively blacklisting the SDF as a terror outfit.
Although Washington has acknowledged Ankara’s right to defend itself from what it perceives as a security threat, it has said it will continue working with the SDF.
“Turkey has a real and clear interest, particularly when it comes to the PKK and terrorism, which is an enduring threat to Turkey,” Blinken said.
“At the same time, again, we want to avoid sparking any kinds of additional conflicts inside of Syria.”
The top US diplomat said he has “had many calls over the last days with partners in the region, and everyone has agreed on the need to have a unified approach to advance many of our shared interests” in Syria.
“I’ll continue those conversations with President Erdogan and Foreign Minister (Hakan) Fidan in Turkey,” he added.
Turkish forces and their proxies, the Syrian National Army, have controlled a stretch of territory in northern Syria since 2016 when they began targeting Kurdish fighters, notably the Syrian Kurdish People’s Defence Units (YPG), which are a key part of the SDF.
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