Turkey vows to strangle ‘terror army’

US backing for Kurdish fighters drove a wedge into ties with Ankara

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan has threatened on Monday to “strangle” a planned 30,000-strong US-backed force in Syria “before it’s even born”, as Washington’s backing for Kurdish fighters drove a wedge into relations with one of its main Middle East allies.

The United States announced its support on Sunday for plans for a “border force” to defend territory held by US-backed, Kurdish-led fighters in northern Syria.

The Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad responded on Monday by vowing to crush the new force and drive US troops from the country. Russia called the plans a plot to dismember Syria and place part of it under US control.

But the strongest denunciation came from Erdogan, who has presided as relations between the US and its biggest Muslim ally within NATO have stretched to the breaking point.

“A country we call an ally is insisting on forming a terror army on our borders,” Erdogan said of the US in a speech in Ankara. “What can that terror army target but Turkey?”

“Our mission is to strangle it before it’s even born.”

Erdogan said Turkey had completed preparations for an operation in Kurdish-held territory in northern Syria.

The Kurdish-led regions in Syria said they need the border force to protect them against threats from both Ankara and Damascus.

Washington has led a coalition using airstrikes and special forces troops to aid fighters on the ground battling Islamic State extremists in Syria since 2014. It has about 2,000 troops on the ground in Syria.

The US intervention has taken place on the periphery of a seven-year civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven more than 11 million from their homes.

The IS group was effectively defeated last year, but Washington said its troops are prepared to stay to make sure the extremist group cannot return.

For much of the war, the US and Turkey worked together, jointly supporting forces fighting against Assad’s government. But a US decision to back Kurdish fighters in northern Syria in recent years has enraged Ankara.

A ‘destructive role’

On Sunday, the US-led coalition said it was working with its militia allies, the mainly Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, to set up the new force to patrol the Turkish and Iraqi borders, as well as within Syria along the Euphrates River which separates SDF territory from that held by the government.

The situation in northern Syria and the growing influence of the Kurdish militias have raised the ire of the Syrian government, which has for long accused Washington of playing a destructive role in Syria.

Damascus warned that it will regard any Syrian citizen taking part in this US-backed militia as a “traitor” and will be dealt with accordingly.

Turkey views the Kurdish forces supported by the US as allies of the PKK, a banned Kurdish group waging an insurgency in southern Turkey.

“This is what we have to say to all our allies: don’t get in between us and terrorist organizations, or we will not be responsible for the unwanted consequences,” Erdogan said.

“Don’t force us to bury in the ground those who are with terrorists,” he said. “Our operations will continue until not a single terrorist remains along our borders, let alone 30,000.”