Turkey said on Sunday it had killed 23 Kurdish militants in northern Syria, the latest in a series of strikes against them which have continued since U.S. President Donald Trump took office last month.
A fighter from the YPG © Mena Today
Turkey said on Sunday it had killed 23 Kurdish militants in northern Syria, the latest in a series of strikes against them which have continued since U.S. President Donald Trump took office last month.
The defence ministry said the militants belonged to the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.
Turkey regards the PKK and YPG to be identical, while the United States views them as separate groups, having banned the PKK as terrorists but recruited the YPG as its main allies in Syria in the campaign against Islamic State.
Turkey has long called on Washington to withdraw support for the YPG, expressing hope that Trump would revise the policy of the previous administration of President Joe Biden.
Turkish forces and their allies in Syria have repeatedly fought with Kurdish militants there since the toppling of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in December.
Turkey has said that the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF - a U.S.-backed umbrella group that includes the Kurdish YPG - must disarm or face military intervention.
Under the Biden administration the United States has had 2,000 troops in Syria fighting alongside the SDF and YPG.
Reporting by Daren Butler
A Lebanese soldier was killed and an officer and another soldier were wounded when a suspicious object exploded in an army vehicle in the southern Lebanese town of Mansouri, the Lebanese army said on Saturday.
Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in a written statement on Saturday that repeated U.S. breaches of a memorandum of understanding signed by the presidents of Iran and the United States had shown that President Donald Trump's signature was "utterly worthless and devoid of credibility."
The Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi, condemned Iranian attacks on civilian infrastructure in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait on Saturday, describing them as "war crimes."
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