Erdogan: Syrian Kurds Don't Seek Help From Iraqi Kurds

"Terrorist Kurds" fighting in Syria are reluctant to accept help from Iraqi Kurds, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday.



"The terrorist group could barely agree to allowing the peshmerga in. After that, they said they want no more than 200 soldiers. Why? Because they fear to lose their monopoly of power in Kobani," Erdogan explained at a news conference while on a visit to the Latvian capital, Riga.



Turkey criticized the U.S. for its military aid to the outlawed Kurdish Democratic Union Party on Monday, saying that would mean arming "terrorists," Erdogan recalled at the press conference.



The Kurdish party is affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which has waged a decades-long separatist fight with the Turkish army. The PKK is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union.



Turkey started a "solution process" in early 2013 to put an end to the conflict, achieving an ongoing two-year lull in the fighting.



The terrorist Kurdish party has unilaterally declared autonomy at three regions in northern Syria in January 2014, without waiting for a political agreement with Syrian opposition groups.



Neither Iraqi Kurdistan Regional President Massoud Barzani, nor the Kurdish National Coalition -- an umbrella organization for 15 more Kurdish political groups inside Syria -- have never accepted the unilateral declaration of autonomy for certain areas by the Democratic Union Party. 



The Democratic Union Party is the only Syrian Kurdish Party which is not affiliated with the Kurdish coalition.  



www.aa.com.tr/en - Ankara