Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said today that Turkey will not allow the US to transfer weapons to Kurdish fighters fighting Islamic extremists in Syria.
Turkey considers the main Kurdish organization in Syria to be the PYD, the military wing of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), which has led an insurgency in Turkey for 30 years and which it considers a terrorist organization along with the US.
The US recently said it was sharing intelligence with Kurdish fighters in Syria, and officials did not rule out the possibility of weapons being supplied to them in the future.
Erdogan told journalists on his way back from Afghanistan that for Turkey, the PYD is the same as the PKK, and "it is a terrorist organization."
"It would be wrong for the US, which we consider a friend and ally in NATO, to expect us to say 'yes' to such support for a terrorist organization," Erdogan said.
Turkey's opposition to supplying weapons to Kurdish fighters makes it difficult for the US-led international coalition to fight Islamic State extremists and complicates relations between Washington and Ankara.
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