Turkey Angered Over U.S. Arms Delivery to Kurdish-Arab Alliance

The United States is reportedly providing light arms to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab forces fighting the so-called Islamic State, the Guardian reported.

U.S. officials told the newspaper they are supplying the arms only to Arab forces within the SDF, but Kurdish forces have said otherwise. The People’s Protection Units (YPG), the main Kurdish militia in Syria, claim the U.S. indicated it would send them weapons if they launch an offensive against the ISIS bastion, Raqqa, in northern Syria.

Turkey, also a U.S. ally in the fight against Islamic State, has not taken the news well. It views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdish insurgency led by the PKK militia, that has been fighting for autonomy since the 1980s. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan reported the arms delivery while attending the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where he said U.S. vice-president Joe Biden claimed he knew of no recent arms deliveries to Kurdish forces in Syria.

Last month Turkey launched a military operation in Syria, simultaneously targeting Islamic State militants near its border, as well as Kurdish forces. The U.S. stressed that its support for the Kurds should not threaten Turkey, and they are necessary allies in the battle to defeat Islamic State.

“Our entire strategy revolves around working the most capable forces. Sometimes those forces don’t get on, but we are seeking to reduce the friction points between them,” a U.S. official told the Guardian, stressing the administration’s desire to attack Raqqa soon.

Obama Defends Syria Policy, Says U.S. Must Be ‘Judicious’

As Barack Obama’s term as U.S. president nears its end, criticisms of his policy on the Syrian conflict are again on the rise, Agence France-Presse reported.

He defended his approach, which has largely focused on diplomacy and sending limited troops to battle the so-called Islamic State, in a CNN town hall debate.

“In Syria, there is not a scenario in which, absent us deploying large numbers of troops, we can stop a civil war in which both sides are deeply dug in,” Obama said. “There are going to be some bad things that happen around the world, and we have to be judicious.”

Last week a cease-fire by the U.S. and Russia failed within days, leading to one of the most violent weeks in Syria’s war, now in its sixth year.

Besieged Numbers Climb, U.N. Security Council Criticized

The number of besieged people in Syria has risen from 586,000 to 861,200 in the past few weeks, said U.N. humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien, the Associated Press reported.

Speaking to the U.N. Security Council on Thursday, O’Brien criticized its inaction, describing the situation in Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, as the “merciless abyss of humanitarian catastrophe.”

“Besiegement is not a weapon of war, it is a flagrant, unjustifiable breach of the law – law which the besieging parties have signed up to,” O’Brien said. “Even if not today, one day there will be no hiding place for the individuals and institutions callously, cynically perpetrating these war crimes.”

Russia, a key ally of the Syrian government, is a veto-holding member of the Security Council and has repeatedly blocked U.N. action aimed at ending the war in the country.

Recommended Reads:

• Time: War Through Syrian Eyes
• The Wall Street Journal: Syria Rebels Draw Closer to al-Qaida-Linked Group
• The New York Times: It’s No Cold War, But Vladimir Putin Relishes His Role as Disrupter
• Al Jazeera: Life in an ISIL Firing Zone on the Syria-Turkey Border
• Foreign Policy: Putin Is Playing by Grozny Rules in Aleppo