Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Sunday he hoped President Donald Trump would end U.S. cooperation with the Syrian Kurdish YPG, as Turkey continued its military campaign against the group, killing 23 of its fighters,
Reuters reports.
The Turkish Defence Ministry said the 23 militants killed by Turkey's armed forces in northern Syria belonged to the YPG militia and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.
Turkey regards the PKK and YPG as identical, while the United States views them as separate groups, having banned the PKK as terrorists but recruited the YPG as its main ally in Syria in the campaign against Islamic State.
"We hope that Mr. Trump will make a decision that will put an end to this ongoing mistake in the region," Fidan told a press conference in Doha with his Qatari counterpart.
He said the YPG was incapable of fighting Islamic State and only played a role in keeping the group's prisoners in jail, adding that Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Jordan had held preliminary talks on fighting Islamic State.
