Head of Syrian Kurdish PYD Denies Ankara Attack Responsibility

The Turkish army started bombing Kurdish camps in northern Iraq overnight, hours after a vehicle bomb attack in the capital Ankara killed at 28 people, Reuters reports.

“It’s not about choosing sides here”, State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Thursday. “Nearly everything is now being delivered to us”, said a source from the opposition. Turkey and the United States consider the PKK a terrorist organization while only Turkey labels the PYD party in Syria a terrorist group.

Washington views the YPG as the most effective ground fighting force inside Syria, and coordinates closely with its leadership to provide air support. The U.S. already lists the PKK as a terror group.

Turkey said a separate attack by PKK militants in the country’s southeast killed six soldiers. On Thursday, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that the perpetrators of the attack were linked with the Kurds.

“We as a government have not settled upon assignment of responsibility”, said Rhodes, who strongly condemned the incident. “There’s an investigation ongoing”.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the leader of the main Syrian Kurdish group, Salih Muslim, denied his group was behind the bombing, and he warned Turkey against taking ground action in Syria.

Turkey’s military says its jets hit Kurdish rebel positions across the border in northern Iraq, following a suicide bombing that targeted military personnel in Ankara killed 28 people.

A senior security official said the alleged bomber had entered Turkey from Syria in July 2014, although he may have crossed the border illegally multiple times before that, and said he had had contact with the PKK and Syrian intelligence. “Is it me that is your partner or is it the terrorists in Kobani?” he said.

Turkish leaders pushed that effort further Thursday.

After a two-year ceasefire, conflict between Turkey and the PKK has been renewed over the past year, which has led to destruction in multiple towns and cities in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated south-east.

The U.S. has rejected Turkish pressure to brand those Kurdish groups as terrorists.

“If Turkey were to launch full-throttle battle against the PYD, this would nearly certainly hurt U.S.-Turkish ties, which is exactly what the PKK would want to achieve from the attack in Ankara”, Cagaptay said. He added that YPG fighters have helped reclaim significant amounts of territory from ISIS.

But the rapid advance of U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters has enraged Ankara and threatened to drive a wedge between North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies.

Facing one of the biggest defeats of the five-year-long war, rebels have been complaining that foreign states such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey have let them down by not providing them with more powerful weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles. But the USA disagrees with Turkey about the Syrian Kurds, viewing them as a reliable ally against Islamic State. Turkey and Saudi Arabia aim to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad, while Russian Federation is fighting to keep it in place.

Ankara is concerned the Kurds will now take a “corridor” east of the Syrian flashpoint border town of Azaz – still under rebel control – to link up two Kurdish-held areas.

Erdogan insisted the evidence pointed to the Syrian Kurdish group. Turkey may have no choice but to do the same with Syria’s Kurds, who have been undertaking state-building measures since 2012. “This issue is a loser for the USA, so we’re going to try to stay out of it”.