“We will clean Afrin of terrorists, we will clean Manbij of terrorists. Turkey has a military presence in the western Syrian province of Idlib as part of a de-escalation agreement struck with Russia and Iran. Erdogan has frequently expressed frustration with the Syrian Kurdish militant group’s presence at Turkey’s border. But it’s rare that he mentions Qamishli, a town further east controlled by both the Syrian Kurds and Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government. Turkish officials regularly criticize the U.S. for backing and arming Syrian Kurds in combatting IS, a sticky issue in already tense bilateral relations.

Source: National Post December 17, 2017 15:30 UTC