Turks fire on the Kurds actually fighting ISIL

AFP:
After months of tensions, Turkey is taking on Syrian Kurdish fighters inside Syria in a move that risks inflaming tensions with its NATO ally the United States and complicating the search for peace after almost five years of civil war.

On consecutive days this weekend, Turkish forces struck positions of Syrian Kurds with fire from Firtina howitzers deployed on the border, saying the army responded to incoming attacks.

This was the first time Turkey had confirmed striking positions of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its People's Protection Units (YPG) militia inside Syria, although last year the Kurds accused Turkey on at least one occasion.

Turkey accuses the PYD and YPG of being the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has fought an over 30-year insurgency against the Turkish state in search of greater powers and rights for the country's Kurdish minority.

Ankara fears the groups are seeking to create a Kurdish autonomous region on Turkey's doorstep in Syria and is now lumping the PYD and YPG together with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, who Ankara wants ousted, and its Russian allies.
...
Turkey continues to be the worse excuse for a US ally in the region.  It is why I think the US should support an autonomous Kurdish state in Syria and Iraq.  The Turks are just not a dependable ally.  They are trying to kill the only people actually fighting a ground war against ISIL in Syria.

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