Turkey says Obama shares Syria concerns with Erdogan, affirms support

A United States spokesman, as of Thursday at least, declined to confirm the link, despite the fact that the Turkish government immediately briefed foreign ambassadors with its evidence to support the claim.

In a phone call with Turkish premier Ahmet Davutoglu, Vice-President Joe Biden said efforts were being made “to discourage Syrian Kurdish forces from exploiting current circumstances to seize additional territory near the Turkish border”, the White House said on Sunday.

“If you are with us why don’t you declare PYD/YPG as terror terrorist organization(s)”, Erdogan said. It was turned down by France.

“It has with certainty been revealed that this attack was carried out by members of the terrorist organisation in Turkey in cooperation with a YPG member who infiltrated from Syria”, Davutoglu told reporters.

Now, he said, the administration’s calculus will have to “add this, a group that no one has heard of”.

The statement followed a meeting between opposition groups held in Riyadh Saturday, after a deadline set by world powers for a temporary pause in fighting passed.

Unity between air and ground forces and a clear objective have enabled the Russians to turn the tide of the Syrian civil war, reverse the fortunes of their longtime ally President Bashar Assad and leave the already muddled American strategy in Syria in tatters.

Russian Federation has said that it would continue to strike those it considers “terrorists” in Syria even during a cease-fire. “We were glad to hear from John Kerry yesterday that his views on the YPG have partly changed”.

He said the moderate opposition could “neutralize” helicopters and aircraft that have been bombing them. But the truce never took hold amid intense fighting, including a massive Russian-backed government offensive near the Turkish border. Since then tensions have steadily built up as the Assad-Russia alliance – with help from the Kurds – threatens to surround Turkish-backed rebels in Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city.

Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the attack blamed on the Kurdish militias places the U.S.in a hard position.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has discussed the Syrian crisis in a telephone call with Saudi King Salman.

United Nations envoy Staffan de Mistura told the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet on Friday that he can not “realistically” get the parties in the Syrian conflict back to the table by February 25 as he had hoped.

It was the latest in a string of deadly strikes that have rocked Turkey since last summer and one of the deadliest assaults targeting the military in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member state in recent years.

“This means more carnage, more war crimes and more refugees”, wrote Kalin.

The Kurds, an ethnic minority spread in the intersecting parts of Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, have long sought an independent state.

“We can only express our regret that this draft resolution was not supported”, he said.

He said the bomber was a Syrian national named Salih Necar.

Turkey’s military pushed ahead with its cross-border artillery shelling campaign against YPG positions in Syria, Anadolu reported. It has also threatened ground action, saying it was exercising its right to self-defense and responding to fire from Syrian soil.