‘US seeks to remain in Syria by training 70,000 PKK terrorists’

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, claimed that the U.S.-led coalition needed to train about 40,000 members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in order to bring stability to eastern Syria, despite the fact that the SDF is made up of PKK/YPG terrorists.

Evaluating the recent developments in the region, former head of department in Turkey’s National Defense Ministry Fahri Erenel, who is also a retired brigadier general, spoke exclusively to Yeni Şafak daily and said, “Actually, the number of SDF terrorists that will be trained by the U.S. forces in Syria is 70,000. Why do they arm 70,000 terrorists? Because the greatest aim of them in the region is to preserve instability and even increase it.”

“They’re not leaving any time soon,” U.S General Dunford had said in his statements.

“The U.S protects the borders of a ‘Kurdish state,’ which is considered to be established in southern Turkey. This is their last trump card. If they fail in this, they will leave the region,” Erenel continued.

The PYD and its military YPG wing are Syrian branches of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged war against Turkey for more than 30 years.

“The U.S has been using the same tactic—terror--as a trump card for 50 years. They are doing the same today as well. But this time, there is Turkey, Iraq, Russia, Iran and Syria on the opposite side. None of these countries want any instability. The U.S. claims that it supports Syria's territorial integrity, but actually it divides Syria,” Erenel said.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed or displaced in the conflict, mainly by regime airstrikes targeting opposition-held areas.

Underlining Pentagon’s efforts to change the social structure of the region he said, “They are forcing some Arab tribes to leave the region and deploying Kurds there. If there is a local election here in the future, they’re following such a path to spur the results in their favor.”

He also said that Washington is in effort to provoke some Arab tribes against Turkey.

Stressing the U.S.’s main aim to monitor Turkish territory from the observation posts that are being established along the northern Syrian border under the pretext of averting terror threats, “No one can guarantee that those observation posts’ operational rights will not be delivered to the PKK terrorists.” Erenel said.

The U.S. has established an observation post in Syria’s Tal Abyad about 2 kilometers away from the Turkish border on a hill, which has a clear view of Turkish soil.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Nov. 21 that the United States was setting up observation posts to avert terror threats.

“We are going to track any threat that we can spot going up into Turkey. That means we will be talking to Turkey’s military across the border,”Mattis said.