Erdoğan slams US for support for Syrian PYD

Baku. 11 February. REPORT.AZ/ Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has slammed the US for its unwavering support for the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD), a major Kurdish political party in Syria, and its armed wing, saying that Washington's inability to see the group's true nature had turned the region into a "sea of blood."

Report informs referring to the Turkish media, in yet another strong rebuke of Turkey's NATO ally, Erdoğan expressed fury over the US's continued, firm backing of the PYD, and pushed the US to choose between Turkey and the PYD.

"Are you on our side or the side of the terrorist PYD and PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party] organization?" Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara to provincial officials, referring to Washington's backing of the PYD against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Turkey considers the PYD to be a terrorist organization, citing its ties to the PKK, which has carried out a three-decades-long violent fight for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish Southeast.

The clashes were revived last summer after the collapse of a fragile two-year cease-fire between the Turkish state and PKK militants.

Turkey, the US and the EU lists the group as a terrorist organization, but to the dismay of Ankara, Turkey's allies refuse to name the PYD, and the People's Protection Units (YPG), its armed wing, as terrorist groups.