U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday spoke with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan and urged him to limit his forces' assault against a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria, the White House said, according to AFP.
In a telephone call, Trump called on Erdogan to "de-escalate" the attack on the northern Syrian region of Afrin and expressed concern about "the destructive and false" anti-American rhetoric emanating from Turkey.
Over the weekend Turkish forces, backed by local Syrian Arab fighters, launched an incursion into Afrin, a border canton administered by a local Kurdish-led council and defended by the YPG militia.
The U.S. has been arming, training, and supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria, and the strongest element of that group is the YPG, a Kurdish group with ties to Kurds in Turkey, including the PKK.
The U.S. makes a distinction between the YPG and the PKK, but Turkey does not and has more than once expressed its outrage over the American support for YPG.
Kurdish leaders have demanded that the United States rein in Turkey, a NATO ally, and vowed to resist its cross-border operation.
According to a White House statement, Trump "urged Turkey to de-escalate, limit its military actions, and avoid civilian casualties and increases to displaced persons and refugees.
"He urged Turkey to exercise caution and to avoid any actions that might risk conflict between Turkish and American forces," it added.
U.S.-Turkey relations have been strained in recent months over several issues. In addition to being angry over the American support for YPG, Erdogan has increasingly attacked Trump over his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. READ MORE
