Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has once again harshly criticized the United States for providing arms to the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), declaring the move to be a violation of the NATO treaty, Hurriyet Daily News reports.
“We will be together in NATO, and you will act together with terrorist groups. What kind of business is this? In this case, the NATO treaty should be revised,” Erdoğan said June 25 at a party rally on Eid al-Fitr.
The Pentagon said on May 30 that it had begun to transfer small arms and vehicles to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which mainly consists of YPG militants, despite Turkey’s objections.
Turkey considers the YPG to be an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and hence a terrorist group.
“Unfortunately, the countries we say are our allies, countries we consider friends see no problem in cooperating with terror organizations targeting Turkey’s unity,” Erdoğan said.
“Those who think that they can fool Turkey by saying that they will get those weapons back will eventually understand the vital mistake they made, but it will be too late. We will call to account the real owners of those weapons for every drop of blood they shed with those weapons,” Erdoğan added.
