State, inspite of fierce opposition from NATO ally Turkey,
Ankara views the Kurdish YPG militia, fighting within
a larger U.S.-backed coalition, as the Syrian extension of the Kurdish PKK
militant group, which has fought an insurgency in southeastern Turkey since
1984.
There was no immediate reaction from Turkey, whose
president, Tayyip Erdogan, is expected to meet Trump in Washington next.
The Pentagon immediately sought to stress that it saw
arming the Kurdish forces “as necessary to ensure a clear victory” in Raqqa,
Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria and a hub for planning the group’s
attacks against the West.
“We are keenly aware of the security concerns of our
coalition partner Turkey,” Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said in a statement
as she traveled in Lithuania with defence secretary Jim Mattis.
“We want to reassure the people and government of
Turkey that the U.S. is committed to preventing additional security risks and protecting
our NATO ally,” White said.
The U.S. has long directly supplied arms to the Arab
components of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, which include YPG
fighters.
White said Washington would still prioritise supplying
those Arab fighters within the SDF.
One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity,
said the equipment for the Kurdish fighters could include small arms,
ammunition, machine guns, armored vehicles and engineering equipment.
Equipment provided to the SDF would be limited,
specific to a mission and provided “incrementally as objectives are reached”
White said.
Officials said the U.S. alliance with Turkey has
proven decisive in the battle against Islamic State in Syria, providing the
coalition with access to Turkey’s Incirlik air base to wage strikes against the
militants.
Mattis, speaking before the announcement to reporters
in Denmark and after talks with coalition members, sounded upbeat about working
through tensions with Ankara.
“Our intent is to work with the Turks, alongside one
another, to take Raqqa down, and we’re going to sort it out and we’ll figure
out how we’re going to do it,” Mattis said.
Mattis called Turkish Defence Minister Fikri Isik on
Tuesday, the Pentagon said.
It was unclear how Isik responded but the Pentagon
said that both “affirmed their support for peace and stability in both Iraq and
Syria.”
The decision to arm the Syrian Kurds will likely cast
a shadow over Erdogan’s visit to Washington, policy experts said.
“There have been bad episodes in the relationship
between the United States and Turkey, but this one is serious because it gets
to the heart of Turkish security priorities,” said Bulent Aliriza, director of
the Turkey project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in
Washington.
“You’ve now got a question mark over the U.S.-Turkish
security relationship that is pretty serious,” Aliriza said.
Ankara had long argued that Washington should switch
support for the planned assault on Raqqa from the Kurdish YPG militia to Syrian
rebels Turkey has trained and led against Islamic State for the past year.
But the U.S. administration was skeptical that the
Turkish-backed force was large enough or sufficiently trained.
White appeared to allude to that conclusion when she
said: “The SDF, partnered with enabling support from U.S. and coalition forces,
are the only force on the ground that can successfully seize Raqqa in the near
future.”
Saleh Muslim, co-chair of the Syrian Kurdish PYD party,
the YPG’s political affiliate, said the U.S. decision was expected.
“The Raqqa campaign is running in parallel with the
international coalition against terrorism. It’s natural that they would provide
weapons” to the SDF and the armed groups fighting as part of it, Muslim said.
In a sign of recent tensions, Turkish warplanes
carried out air strikes against Kurdish YPG fighters in northeastern Syria and
Iraq’s Sinjar region late last month, killing less than 30 fighters, according
to one estimate.
The U.S. has played down Turkish accusations of links
between the YPG and PKK.
Ankara believes the YPG’s advances will fuel
anti-Kurdish sentiment in predominantly Arab parts of Syria such as Raqqa, and
threaten Syria’s territorial integrity.
(Source: Reuters/NAN)
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