US talks turkey on Syria
ANKARA: United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson acknowledged yesterday that Washington faced difficult choices in the fight against Islamic State in Syria but sought to play down differences with Nato ally Turkey over support for Kurdish militia fighters.
Speaking after meetings in Ankara with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and senior government ministers, Tillerson said there was ‘‘no space’’ between Turkey and the United States in their determination to defeat Islamic State.
Erdogan and his government have been incensed by US support for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, seen by the Pentagon as a reliable partner but by Turkey as a hostile force with deep links to Kurdish PKK militants who have waged a threedecade insurgency against the Turkish state.
It is particularly frustrated by the use of YPG fighters in a planned USled offensive to retake Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, an operation in which Ankara has long said it wants to play a role.
‘‘What we discussed today are options that are available to us. They are difficult options. Let me be very frank, it’s not easy, they are difficult choices that have to be made,’’ Tillerson said alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.
Cavusoglu said Washington accepted there was no difference between the YPG militia and the PKK. Tillerson condemned recent PKK attacks in Turkey but made no such acknowledgement.
He said his talks focused on the creation of ‘‘stabilisation zones’’ in Syria so refugees could return home and that options on how to secure such areas were being explored.
Turkey, sheltering more than two million Syrians, has long called for such safe areas but the idea has gained little traction among Western allies who question how such zones can be carved out without a significant foreign military presence.
Tillerson’s visit comes at a difficult time in USTurkish relations. Ties soured under former US President Barack Obama and officials in Ankara had been hoping for a reset under Donald Trump, but signs of improvement were few.
Aside from differences over Syria, relations have also been strained by the continued presence in the US of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Erdogan for a failed coup last July and whom Ankara wants extradited.
Cavusoglu said Turkey expected Washington to take concrete steps on Gulen’s extradition, including his temporary detention.
Tillerson’s trip was further clouded by the arrest in New York on Monday of an executive of Turkey’s staterun Halkbank, who is accused of conspiring with TurkishIranian gold trader Reza Zarrab over years of a scheme to evade US sanctions on Iran.
Cavusoglu described the arrest of the banker as a ‘‘political’’ move and said the US attorney who launched the case against Zarrab had close ties with Gulen’s supporters. — Reuters