Turkey Assails U.S. Decision to Arm Syrian Kurds

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/world/europe/turkey-us-syrian-kurds.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur&referer=

The Trump administration has recently decided to arm a Syrian Kurdish militant group in the battle against the Islamic State.  Turkey and it's government, however, has criticized this decision and hope it will be reversed soon.  The militant group is called the People's Protection Units, otherwise known by the Kurdish abbreviation Y.P.G.  While they're fighting alongside Syrian Arab forces against groups like ISIS, Turkey considers the Y.P.G. to be a terrorist organization and believes that it's closely linked to a Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against the Turkish government, the P.K.K.  The Turkish government views the U.S. decision as them siding with terrorists group over Turkey, which has been a U.S. ally for some time.  President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey plans to express his concerns directly to President Trump in a visit to Washington next week.  The Syrian Kurds, however, are very pleased with the United States's decision to arm them.

Shannon McDonald