ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Friday that the new Syrian administration should be given an opportunity to address the presence of Kurdish militants in the country, and reiterated that the Turkish military would act if it did not.
Since the toppling of President Bashar al-Assad last month by rebels – some of which have been backed by Turkey for years – Ankara has repeatedly said the Kurdish YPG militia must disband, lay down its weapons, and have its foreign fighters leave Syria.
“We see that there is an agenda in the new administration to end the occupation and terror that the YPG has created in the region,” Fidan told a press conference in Istanbul.
“We believe that an opportunity needs to be given to them to realise this. We are waiting for this now,” he said, without saying how long Turkey would wait.
Ankara has threatened to mount a military operation against the Kurdish forces, which control Syria’s northeast, if its demands are not met.
Turkey considers the YPG, which spearheads the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a terrorist organisation linked to militants waging a decades-old insurgency against the Turkish state. Washington considers them a key ally battling Islamic State.
Fidan said he did not expect any problems with the United States in counter-terrorism in Syria despite its support for the YPG, even if this was a matter for the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
Ankara, he said, is reviewing its presence in parts of northern Syria where it controls territory after several cross-border incursions against the YPG.
“We are in a new period… (and) our presence there will have to, God willing, evolve into a different dimension if everything goes well,” he said.
Asked about the role of Russia in Syria and the fate of its military bases in coastal Syria, Fidan said he believed Moscow had taken a “very rational” decision by cutting its support for Assad amid the rebels’ advance toward Damascus.
The future of its air and naval bases depended on negotiations with the new Syrian administration, he said.
(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Daren Butler)
