Free Republic

The PKK terrorist organization has come to the brink of collapse thanks to the Turkish army’s continued military operations, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on April 19, while vowing that the anti-terror fight will endure determinately. “The collapse of the terrorist organizations PKK/PYD and YPG, which are no different from each other, is accelerating as a result of our determined struggle, with their ringleaders now openly expressing their organization’s disintegration,” Akar said, speaking at a conference in the northwestern province of Bursa. Akar said that they observed this “disintegration” in the walkie-talkie conversations of PKK members during the recent Operation...

The US decision to withdraw forces from northern Syria in anticipation of Turkish assault is only the most recent betrayal Kurds have faced A popular saying goes that Kurds have "no friends but the mountains". ****snip*** The decision on Monday by US President Donald Trump to withdraw American troops from northern Syria in anticipation of a Turkish invasion is only the latest in a long line of betrayals. *****snip**** In 2016, the Turkish military and allied Syrian forces launched Operation Euphrates Shield and entered northern Syria with the express aim of defeating the so-called Islamic State (IS) group that still...

Turkish autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdogan is coming to Washington, DC, on May 16 loaded for bear.  He has an ambitious agenda and apparently feels he can achieve it all because he holds “trump” cards against the President of the United States. Erdogan and his proxies have publicly said they want to convince the United States to jettison its budding alliance with the Syrian Democratic Union (PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish group that has become the tip of the spear in the fight against ISIS in Syria. On this point, they will encounter resistance...

Turkey's foreign ministry summoned the US ambassador on Tuesday, according to media reports, after State Department spokesman John Kirby angered Ankara by saying that Washington did not consider the main Syrian Kurdish party to be a terrorist organization. Turkish authorities, who consider the Democratic Union Party (PYD) a terrorist group, have expressed their "unease" over the remarks by Kirby....

United State government said that it has met directly with a main Kurdish political party in Syria for first time since the Syrian crisis began more than three years ago. The State Department has revealed that in the past week US officials in French Capital Paris have held talks with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, known as the PYD. This is the first time US government has met with PYD, which has been linked to Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK), a guerrilla group considered by the U.S. and Turkey as a terrorist organization. The reports of US meeting PYD official is...