Turkey warns US defense secretary over PYD in Syria

Hurriyet - Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Işık discussed the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) with U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis late on Feb. 15 at a NATO summit in Brussels, a Turkish Defense Ministry official has said.      

The meeting was the first coming together of the two, and Işık used the occasion to warn Mattis about U.S. support for the PYD in northern Syria, the official said.

"Anti-terror operations cannot succeed in this way. One terrorist organization cannot be preferred over another one,” Işık reportedly said, referring to the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). 

Turkey sees the PYD and its military wing, the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG), as terrorist organizations due to their links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). 

At the NATO meeting in Brussels Işık also met counterparts from Spain, Italy, the U.K. and France, the official added.