Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated on Wednesday that Kurdish militants in Syria must either surrender their weapons or “be buried,” amid ongoing hostilities between Turkey-backed Syrian fighters and Kurdish militants following the fall of Bashar al-Assad this month, according to a report on Reuters.
Since Assad's departure, Ankara has consistently demanded the disbandment of the Kurdish YPG militia, asserting that the group has no place in Syria's future. The leadership change in Syria has weakened the position of the country's primary Kurdish factions.
Erdogan addressed lawmakers from his ruling AK Party in Parliament, declaring, “The separatist murderers will either bid farewell to their weapons, or they will be buried in Syrian lands along with their weapons.” He added, “We will eradicate the terrorist organization that is trying to weave a wall of blood between us and our Kurdish siblings.”
Turkey regards the Kurdish YPG militia, the primary component of the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has led an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.
Erdogan denied any organizational ties between Turkey and the PKK. He also announced that Turkey would soon open its consulate in Aleppo and anticipated increased border traffic next summer as some of the millions of Syrian migrants hosted in Turkey begin returning home.
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