A US operation to airlift weapons and other supplies to a Syrian Kurdish group defending the besieged town of Kobani took place despite Turkish opposition, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Thursday.
Erdoğan, speaking at a press conference during a visit to Latvia, said he had told US President Barack Obama that the Syrian Kurdish group that would receive the airlifted supplies, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), included leaders of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group designated as terrorist one by both Turkey and the United States.
“I have told him [Obama] that the PYD and the PKK are the same. Therefore, assistance to the PYD goes to the terrorist group [the PKK],” Erdoğan said. “The US did this despite Turkey’s objection.”
He also repeated that Kobani is not of strategic importance to the US, adding that he has told Obama that if it has any such significance, it is for Turkey, not the US.
Erdoğan criticized on Wednesday the US airdrop of weapons and other supplies, provided by the Iraqi Kurds, saying it turned out to be “wrong” because some of the supplies were seized by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which has besieged Kobani for more than a month.
Erdoğan and Obama spoke on the phone early Monday morning to discuss the situation in Kobani, hours before the airdrops started.. see more
source: todayszaman
Tags: Erdo?an, ISIS, Kobani, Politics, US airdrops
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