Turkey working against US initiatives over YPG: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Scott Rickard, a political analyst and former American intelligence linguist, to discuss the clashes between Turkish army and the fighters of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

Here is a rough transcription of the interview:

Press TV: I’d like to first of all get your opinion on the dynamics over here when we see US ally, NATO member, Turkey on one side and then the YPG forces which have also been supported by the US on the other side?

Rickard: Well truly the US has made a decision here to support the YPG in the absence of their mercenary success, in actually their failure in and around Syria. So what you have here is you have the US employing its next generation of mercenary force –YPG – which has been an adversary to Turkey and Erdogan and predecessors to Erdogan for quite some time.

The Americans have made a choice. At the same time Turkey is making a choice and saying ‘look, I am not going to allow the YPG forces to go east of the Euphrates River, enough is enough, you are not going to be able to use these forces to continue to expand your hegemony into Syria not because of they are protecting [Syria], Turkey is not protecting Syria. Turkey is protecting Syria at Turkey at this time. The Turkish army is very clear that they do not want to see the YPG make any more advances and unfortunately the Americans have given the YPG and other Kurdish factions almost half a billion dollars and at the same time both CIA and former American soldiers are embedded with the YPG.

So what we see here is an ongoing and the beginning of the Turkish army working directly against the initiatives of the Americans and it is actually a clear indication that Turkey is not as closely aligned with the American objectives and it is taking some considerations from what Iran and Russia have been pushing against the hegemony of not only the United States but their allies in the region that have really continued to cause the onslaught against Syria.                           

Press TV: Then I guess the question is about will this situation be exacerbated as both sides continue to dig in where Turkey continues to insist that it will not accept the presence of YPG forces, be it west of the Euphrates River or even east because there are reports that it might even cross over into Kobani?

Rickard: Well that is the case. When you look at Kobani, obviously the YPG did help free Kobani earlier from the Americans runaway mercenaries that were attacking Kobani for such a long time. The Turkish army did participate in that. That was very closely covered by Press TV and the loss of their other reporter in that area. This is unfortunate but I think what you see at the same time is the Turkish military is actually and the government has come out and said, ‘look, enough is enough, being side with the YPG is not acceptable to us’ and obviously the Americans are saying it is not acceptable that you attack our YPG forces. So what we are coming to is a stalemate.

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