Speaking to his ruling AKP Party, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan revealed that Turkey is preparing to deploy more military forces into northeastern Syria, to act against Kurdish YPG forces east of the Euphrates River.
Erdogan complained that the US was not taking actions previously agreed to against the YPG in that region, and said that Turkey was prepared to take “all necessary steps” themselves, saying it would be done for the “peace of our country but also for the people living in this region.”
These comments come just ahead of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Turkey, and likely are meant to set the tone for another round of negotiation. The US and Turkish Foreign Ministry have repeatedly sparred over the fate of parts of Syria under control of Kurdish forces.
These meetings have almost always ended with agreements to come up with a solution to the US-Turkey disagreement. These, however, are rarely followed up by any specific agreements, leading Turkey to condemn US inaction in cracking down on the Kurds in the ways they’d expected.
