Turkey hits back over Trump threats

Turkey on Monday vowed it would not be intimidated by US President Donald Trump’s threats of economic devastation if Ankara attacks Kurdish forces as American troops withdraw.

Trump’s threat came after Ankara repeatedly threatened a new cross-border operation against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which have been working closely with the US in the war on Islamic State (IS) extremists.

US support to the YPG has been a major source of tension between the Nato allies.

“We have said repeatedly we are not scared of and will not be intimidated by any threats,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said.

“Economic threats against Turkey will get nowhere.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesperson, Ibrahim Kalin, said earlier Ankara would “continue to fight against them all”, referring to IS and the YPG.

Trump on Sunday warned the US would “devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds”. While there have been tensions over American training of the YPG under the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces alliance, there appeared to be some improvement on the issue after Trump said last month 2,000 US troops would withdraw from Syria.

Ankara welcomed the pullout decision after Erdogan told Trump in a phone call that Turkey could finish off the last remnants of IS.

Trump had also pushed for the creation of a 30km “safe zone” in his tweet but offered no details.

Cavusoglu said Turkey was not against a security zone in Syria, during a media conference in Ankara with his Luxembourg counterpart, Jean Asselborn.

Turkey views the YPG as a terrorist offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.

The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Ankara, the US and the European Union.

Spokesperson Kalin said it was a fatal mistake to equate Syrian Kurds with the PKK.

There has been growing friction between Turkey and the US over the fate of the YPG, especially after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had said before that Washington would ensure Turkey would not slaughter Kurds.

And before a visit to Ankara last week, White House National Security adviser John Bolton said the US retreat was conditional on the safety of the Kurdish fighters, provoking anger from Turkish officials.

But Pompeo said on Saturday he was optimistic a way could be found to protect Syrian Kurds while allowing Turks to “defend their country from terrorists”.

The threat of new sanctions hit the Turkish lira which weakened after 1pm on Monday to reach over 5.5 to the US dollar, a loss of more than 1% in value on the day.

Turkey launched military offensives in northern Syria in 2016 and 2018 respectively against IS and the YPG.