US calls for Turkey, YPG to ease tension in northern Syria

The United States has called for Turkey and the military wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union (PYD), the People's Protection Units (YPG), to ease increasing tension in northern Syria by abandoning their current actions in the region. 

"The YPG needs to stop its own actions on the ground that we believe raises tensions. But we would also urge Turkey to, as I said, cease firing artillery across the border," U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Feb. 16 during a daily press briefing. "We just think it escalates tensions in the region."

Turkey has been shelling YPG targets in the Azez town of northern Syria since Feb. 13, after the group seized the Menagh air base north of Aleppo. Turkey regards the YPG as a terrorist organization, as it sees it as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), with which Turkey has been in armed clashes since the mid-1980s. 

Toner reiterated U.S.' previous statements that it saw the PYD and YPG as an effective partner in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria. 

"We do view them as an effective fighting force, but we've also been clear that we don't want to see them take actions or hold territory that is going to create tensions either with Turkey or with other groups in that area," Toner said, adding that the U.S. considered YPG's actions in the region to be "counterproductive to the overall effort to defeat ISIL." 

Commenting on whether escalation in the region would make NATO confront Syria and Russia, Toner said that despite Turkey being a member of the alliance, he did not see such an incident happening. 

"There's no cause that we see, of any concern, that NATO would somehow become involved," said Toner, adding...