Alwaght- Turkey seeks to urge American officials in today's talks to hand over their military bases in Syria to Ankara or destroy them, the Hurriyet newspaper reported.
"Give them or destroy them", the Turkish daily's headline read, referring to what it said were 22 US military bases in the Syrian Arab Republic.
US National Security Adviser John Bolton was meeting with his Turkish counterpart Ibrahim Kalin on Tuesday, days after Bolton added a condition to the US pullout, saying Turkey must agree to protect the United States’ Kurdish ally, the YPG militia, which Ankara views as a terrorist group.
On Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told CNBC that Turkish President Erdogan had promised to protect US-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria:
"Erdogan made a commitment to President Trump… that the Turks would continue the counter ISIS* [Daesh] campaign after our departure, and that the Turks would ensure that the folks that we'd fought with — that assisted us in the counter ISIS campaign — would be protected".
However, Hurriyet cited unnamed sources as saying that Turkey would not accept Washington handing them over to the YPG.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also said that Ankara could never compromise on the issue of the YPG.
