Turkey slams Kurdish force plan for Syria

BEIRUT — Turkey’s president on Monday denounced U.S. plans to form a Kurdish-led border security force in Syria, vowing to “drown this army of terror before it is born.”

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also warned U.S. troops against coming between Turkish troops and Kurdish forces, which Ankara views as an extension of Turkey’s own Kurdish insurgency.

Turkey has been threatening to launch a military operation against the main Syrian Kurdish militia, known as the YPG, in the Kurdish-held Afrin enclave in northern Syria. The YPG is the backbone of a Syrian force that drove the Islamic State group from much of northern and eastern Syria with the help of U.s.-led airstrikes.

Russia has also warned that the nascent U.S. force threatens to fuel tensions around Afrin.

“The United States has admitted that it has created a terrorist force along our country’s border. Our duty is to drown this army of terror before it is born,” Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara.

The U.s.-led coalition declined to comment on Erdogan’s threats.

“Turkey is a valued member of a 74-member Coalition and a NATO partner, sharing our mission to ensure the lasting defeat of (IS) in Iraq and Syria. It would be inappropriate for us to comment on Mr. Erdogan’s remarks,” the coalition said in an email to the Associated Press.

The coalition said the new force, expected to reach 30,000 in the next several years, is a key element of its strategy in Syria to prevent the resurgence of IS.

Turkey sent troops into Syria in 2016 to prevent Syrian Kurdish fighters from forming a contiguous entity along its border. It has also supported rival Syrian rebels and independently fought to drive IS from parts of Syria.