US made a strategic mistake by cooperating with PYD: Turkish defense minister

The United States has made a strategic mistake by cooperating with the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Defense Minister Fikri Işık said Jan. 6.
"The U.S. chose the PYD as a partner in fighting with DEASH [ISIL]. From the beginning, we have been saying that this is wrong. We are saying to our counterparts: The PYD is the Syrian wing of the PKK [the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party]," Işık told private broadcaster Habertürk.

He also added that the U.S. would also eventually pay the price for supporting the PYD.

"The U.S. made a strategic mistake. We are paying its price as the U.S. will also pay the price. All terror organizations have made their supporters pay the price," Işık said.

Reiterating Ankara's disturbance on the U.S.' supply of arms to the PYD, Işık recalled that weapons given to Syrian Kurdish groups have been later been found in the hands of PKK militants in Turkey, ISIL jihadists in Syria and even on the international arms market. 

"Arguing that 'the U.S. is doing this to increase terror in Turkey' would be exaggerated. We have no such evidence on it. But, at the end of the day, the U.S.' support of the PYD and supplying weapons that have been used against Turkey by the PKK obliges us to make this argument," he said.
 

İncirlik a Turkish base 

In this respect, the anti-ISIL coalition's use of Turkey's İncirlik Air Base has come to the agenda of the public rather than the Turkish government, Işık said. 

"The U.S. is our ally in NATO. The base of our alliance should be transparent and genuine. In the absence of these, it would be hard to sustain this alliance," Işık said. "This does not...