President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday told the US to stop "deceiving" Turkey and start cooperation, after Washington said it was concerned by the Turkish-led offensive on the Syrian city of Afrin. Erdogan's typically abrasive comments came after the US State Department reacted to the capture by Turkish forces of Afrin from Kurdish militia by sounding alarm over the fate of civilians and looting.
"If we are strategic partners, you must respect us and you must work with us," Erdogan told Turkey's Nato ally during a speech to ruling party lawmakers in parliament. He said that the US had carried out "such a deception" against Turkey by arming the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia which had controlled the Afrin region.
Turkish troops supporting Ankara-backed Syrian opposition fighters captured Afrin city during a lightning assault on Sunday, with the YPG largely withdrawing without a fight. Turkey says the YPG is linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency inside Turkey and is proscribed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.
But US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert on Monday said the US was "deeply concerned" after the assault triggered an exodus of Kurdish civilians from the city. Nauert said Washington was also "concerned over reports of looting inside the city of Afrin", which AFP reporters had witnessed.
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