US and Turkey to cooperate on seizing Raqqa

Pentagon chief holds talks with top Turkish official

COPENHAGEN // The United States and Turkey will work together amid ongoing operations to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa, ISIL’s last stronghold, Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said yesterday. Turkey has been launching air strikes for weeks against a key US-backed Kurdish militia, drawing an angry response from Washington.

“Our intent is to work with the Turks, alongside one another to take Raqqa down,” said Gen Mattis, the US defence secretary, after an anti- ISIL summit in Copenhagen.

“We are going to sort it out and figure out how we are going to do it, but we are all committed to it.”

But the US does not envision Turkey actually participating in the ground offensive for Raqqa, a town that ISIL has held for more than two years. Turkish warplanes carried out strikes on Kurdish People’s Protection Units forces in Syria on April 27 and also hit Kurdish forces in neighbouring Iraq in what Ankara described as “terrorist havens”.

Turkey says fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units are linked to Kurdistan Workers’ Party separatists in Turkey, who have waged a deadly insurgency since 1984 that has killed more than 40,000 people. But Washington has backed the Kurdish People’s Protec- tion Units with training and air support and the Kurds make up much of the Syrian Democratic Forces, who have largely surrounded Raqqa.

The Syrian Democratic Forces are expected to begin an offensive shortly, although it is not clear what role the Kurdish People’s Protection Units will play.

“The tactical activities on the ground, I don’t want to go into details right now,” said Gen Mattis.

At the anti- ISIL conference, Gen Mattis had a meeting with Basat Ozturk, deputy undersec- retary at the Turkish defence ministry. The US-led coalition fighting ISIL in Iraq and Syria discussed the campaign’s next steps as the extremists’ caliphate around Raqqa continus to collapse.

“We examined the enemy situation and discussed the next steps to make sure we are all on the same sheet of music.

“We are going to further accelerate this fight,” Gen Mattis said after the summit.