Turkey: Kurds should not join anti-IS operations
Turkey's foreign minister says the international coalition needs a strategy to defeat the Islamic State group without the involvement of Kurdish rebels, which Turkey deems a terrorist group.
In a televized news conference Tuesday, Mevlut Cavusoglu said Syrian Kurdish militia cannot be partners in clearing the Islamic State group from Iraq and Syria.
Cavusoglu says the Syrian Kurdish militia forces inclusion in an operation to liberate Raqqa from the Islamic State group would endanger Syria's future.
He says more than 200 Syrian Kurdish fighters remain in the city of Manbij, despite promises by U.S. leaders that they would withdraw east of the Euphrates. He asks, "if you cannot send more than 200 of them back, how will you trust them in other places?"
He was speaking at a joint news conference with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in Ankara
