ANKARA: Turkiye is pressing the United States to reconsider its support for Kurdish militants in Syria, according to comments by its leaders including President Tayyip Erdogan, who has again floated the possibility of a new cross-border offensive.
“We are constantly reminding our American counterparts that they need to stop the cooperation they have with the terrorist organization in Syria,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was quoted on Monday as telling the Milliyet newspaper.
“Our contacts on this issue have increased. We see that the US side is keen on more talks and negotiations too,” he added.
On Sunday, Erdogan said Turkiye could mount a new offensive into northern Syria to create new safe zones along its border, after saying on Friday that he would discuss a possible US troop withdrawal from Syria with President-elect Donald Trump.
Strains in US-Turkiye ties include US support for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, Washington’s main ally against Islamic State in Syria. Ankara calls it a terrorist organization and extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which the United States also deems a terror group.
NATO member Turkiye has carried out several cross-border operations against the YPG in recent years and has since threatened more.
Erdogan said on Sunday these moves established safe zones in Syria that had “thwarted attempts to surround” it from the southern borders, and Turkiye was determined to “completely cut off contact between terrorist organizations.”
“God willing, we will complete the missing links of the safe zone we have established along our borders in coming period,” he said.
In recent months Erdogan has also made overtures to repair severed ties with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government after a decade of animosity.
Ankara has complained that Damascus has not reciprocated its attempts at rapprochement, after Erdogan said in July he wanted to invite Assad for talks. Assad said those attempts have yielded no results and Damascus wants Turkish troops to withdraw from Syrian territories.
Turkiye pressing US to rethink Kurdish alliance in Syria
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Turkiye pressing US to rethink Kurdish alliance in Syria
UN rights chief Shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
