Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, declared that the YPG militia should be disbanded following a meeting with Syria’s de facto leader in Damascus on Sunday, stating that Kurdish militants had no place in Syria’s future.
Turkey sees the YPG as a proximate group of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), a group of militants who have waged a 40-year insurgency against the Turkish state and are considered terrorists by Ankara, Washington, and the EU.
There are ongoing hostilities in northeast Syria between Syrian fighters backed by Turkey and the YPG, who lead the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in that region.
On Sunday, Hakan Fidan visited Damascus, making him the first foreign minister to do so since Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow two weeks ago.
Fidan stated that he had engaged in a conversation with the new Syrian administration regarding the YPG’s presence and was confident that Damascus would take the necessary measures to protect Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty while speaking alongside Syria’s de facto leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“The YPG must disband,” Fidan said, adding that the group should “reach a point where it is no longer a threat to Syria’s national unity” in the near future.
The SDF defeated Islamic State militants in 2014–2017 with U.S. air support and still holds them in prison camps. Anthony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State, reminded that the Islamist group was going to attempt to reestablish capabilities.
Fidan said that the international community was ignoring the illegality of the SDF and YPG’s actions in Syria, but he also predicted that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump would adopt a different stance.