Erdogan threatens to review Nato alliance over US arming of Kurdish forces in Syria

TURKEY’S president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has criticised the US over its arming of Kurdish forces in Syria and threatened a review of the Nato military alliance in response.

“At one side we will be together in Nato but on the other side you will act together with terror organisations,” he said in reference to the Us-led coalition support of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – which is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Forces, which Turkey considers terrorists.

The SDF is leading the battle to liberate the northern Syrian city of Raqqa from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) and has been supplied with weapons and training by the US military. Mr Erdogan said the decision, which has caused a major rift between Nato’s two biggest military forces, contravened the alliance’s framework of cooperation.

“All of these moves are against Nato,” he said. “In this case, the Nato treaty should be revised.”

Washington has tried to placate Ankara by promising that all weapons provided to the Kurdish fighters would be taken back once Isil was defeated.

“Those who think that they can fool Turkey by saying that they will get those weapons back will eventually understand the vital mistake they made, but it will be too late,” Mr Erdogan said. “We will call to account the real owners of those weapons for every drop of blood they shed with those weapons.”

The US and the EU, 22 of whose 29 member states are in Nato, have hard- ened their attitude towards Mr Erdogan over his increasingly authoritarian grip on his country.

Since an attempted coup last summer, Mr Erdogan has set about arresting tens of thousands of suspected plotters and sympathisers, including soldiers, teachers, judges, politicians and journalists.

In April he won public approval for constitutional overhaul which extends his powers.

Ties with Germany have been particularly strained in recent months.

Yesterday Berlin said Turkish security and police officers who were charged with assault after an attack on protesters in Washington would not be allowed to accompany Mr Erdogan to next week’s G20 summit in Hamburg.