President Donald Trump told the Turkish President that he will stop arming a Kurdish militia the Turkish government considers a terrorist organization, Turkey’s foreign minister announced Friday.
Cavusoglu added that Trump “repeated by the end of the conversation before they hung up that he ordered generals and national security adviser (Lt. Gen. H. R.) McMaster not to give arms.”
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the decision.
Trump approved a plan to supply weapons to the YPG in May to help bolster the effort by US-backed forces to capture Raqqa, the self-declared capital of ISIS. The YPG is closely affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK, which has carried out terrorist attacks against Turkey, prompting concerns from the NATO ally that weapons supplied to the YPG could wind up in the hands of the PKK.
US-backed forces captured Raqqa from ISIS last month in a major milestone in the fight against the terrorist group, but the Trump administration has offered no signals it would stop arming the Kurdish militia after the city’s fall.
Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, said Turkey welcomes Trump’s “promise of not providing weapons to the YPG” and is waiting for the pledge to be “implemented practically.”
Trump’s Friday morning call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was expected to focus on the Syrian conflict, coming days after Erdogan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to discuss Syria’s future.
Trump also spoke earlier this week with Putin to discuss Syria’s future.
