advertisement

Turkey expects Syrian Kurdish YPG forces to withdraw east of the Euphrates river after they and other U.S.-backed forces seized control of the Syrian town of Manbij from Islamic State fighters, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday.Turkey says the YPG is a terrorist group tied to Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants fighting a three-decade insurgency in its southeast and that Washington has given Ankara assurances that the Manbij operation would be overwhelmingly composed of Syrian Arab fighters.