Turkish president threatens to ‘drown’ Kurdish force trained by the U.S.

The Washington Post

BEIRUT — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reacted in anger Monday to a proposed U.S.-trained force that could lead to Kurdish militiamen being stationed on the Syrian side of Turkey’s southern border, threatening to “drown” the force before it is born.

The U.S.-led coalition confirmed Sunday that it is training recruits for a planned 30,000-strong force that will maintain security on Syria’s borders with Turkey and Iraq.

But Baghdad-based force’s manpower will be drawn from the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, Washington’s favored proxy in the fight against IS and a major source of contention with Ankara, which views Syria’s Kurdish fighters as an extension of a Kurdish group in Turkey that has battled the central government fordecades.

Speaking on Monday at the opening of an Ankara soda factory, Mr. Erdogan said it is his government’s duty “to drown this terrorist force before it is born.”

The U.S.-led coalition provided significant military and logistical support to the SDF as it beat back IS militants across Syria. The Trump administration has said it would gradually scale back its military assistance to the Kurds as major combat winds down. The proposed borderforce appears to signal how Pentagon would support itsKurdish proxies in the longerterm in Syria.

Syria’s Kurdish fighters have emerged as one of the main winners of the country’s six-year war, capturing swaths of land in the country’s north. As a result, Turkey has shifted its focus in Syria from supporting rebel groups seeking to overthrow President Bashar Assad to preventing Kurdish fighters from controlling more territory along its border.