Ankara has repeatedly demanded that the Kurdish YPG militia must disband and called on the US to stop it.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that Kurdish fighters in Syria will lay down their arms or “be buried”, amid hostilities between Turkiye-backed Syrian rebels and other armed groups from Former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fell earlier this month. .
Following al-Assad's ouster on December 8, Ankara has repeatedly called for the disbandment of the Kurdish YPG militia, saying the group has no place in Syria in the future.
The change in Syria's leadership has left the country's main Kurdish groups on the back foot.
“The separatist murderers will say goodbye to their weapons, or they will be buried in Syrian lands along with their weapons,” Erdogan told lawmakers from his ruling AK party in parliament on Wednesday.
“We will destroy the terrorist group that is trying to weave a wall of blood between us and our Kurdish sisters,” he said.
Turkiye sees the YPG militia – the main part of the US-aligned Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militia. he rebelled against the Turkish state since 1984.
The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the European Union. Ankara has called again on its NATO counterpart Washington and others to stop supporting the YPG.
Al Jazeera's Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Istanbul, said that this is not a surprising statement by Erdogan “because it is the official rhetoric of the Turkish government.”
Since the YPG is considered “the Syrian branch of the PKK, Ankara believes that they should lay down their arms, or they should fight and be defeated,” Koseoglu said.
Earlier, the Turkiye defense ministry said that the armed forces had killed 21 YPG-PKK fighters in northern Syria and Iraq.
SDF chief Mazloum Abdi admitted last week that PKK fighters were in Syria for the first time, saying they had helped fight ISIL fighters (the also known as ISIS) and would return home if a complete ceasefire was agreed with Turkiye, a key demand from Ankara. .
He denied any organizational links to the PKK.
Erdogan also said that Turkiye would open its consulate in Aleppo soon, adding that Ankara expected an increase in traffic at its borders next summer as some of the millions of migrants from Syria are starting to return to their homes.
