CNN reported that in an apparent rebuke of Turkey, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said that the US and NATO do not view the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) as a terrorist organization.
“We have fundamentally different views, we being the United States and our NATO allies, on whether or not the YPG is a foreign terrorist organization, we don’t think they are neither do many or all of our NATO allies, but the Turks do,” he said.
“My biggest concern with Syria and Turkey is actually Turkey-Russia, the concern is Turkey is moving out of the NATO orbit…I think our challenge is to figure out how we can get them back closer to the NATO alliance,” Esper added.