ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Turkey on Friday blasted France and called on Paris to repatriate its jihadist nationalists jailed in Syria, days after President Emmanuel Macron said they would not abandon Syrian Kurds amidst the most recent developments in the country, including growing fears over Turkey’s threats to launch a military campaign against the semi-autonomous Kurdish enclave in northeastern Syria.
At a news conference in Istanbul, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the US is their only interlocutor in northeastern Syria.
"If France had anything to do [in Syria], it should take its own citizens, bring them to its own prisons, and judge them,” Fidan said, accusing the French government of ignoring Ankara's security concerns in Syria.
“They [France] have a policy, they do not bring ISIS prisoners back to their own countries. But they do not care about our security,” Fidan detailed.
President Macron on Monday promised that they would not abandon “freedom fighters, like the Kurds” in Syria.
France is an active member of the global coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS) and maintains troops in northeast Syria’s Kurdish-held areas.
"The US is our only counterpart," Fidan said. "Frankly, we do not take into account countries that try to advance their own interests in Syria by hiding behind US power."
Clashes have erupted between the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkey and its affiliated rebel groups in SDF-controlled areas in northeast Syria since the start of the ex-rebel groups' campaign in late November.
Ankara has said it would press on with military preparations in northern Syria against the SDF until the group is disarmed, claiming that the Kurdish-led force is a security threat to Turkey.
The Turkey-backed groups have been intensely pushing to wrest control of Kobani, and the strategic Tishrin Dam on the Euphrates River from the SDF with the support of Turkish warplanes, but so far, to no avail.
Fidan told CNN Turk television late on Tuesday that “we will do what is necessary” if the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the SDF’s backbone, fail to meet Ankara’s demands, saying “a military operation” could be on the cards.
“The terrorist fighters coming from international countries must leave Syria, the PKK leadership must leave the country. The remaining cadres must lay down their weapons and join the new system, this is for a bloodless and problem-free transition,” Fidan had said.
In today’s news conference, Fidan said Ankara had no intention to take over any part of Syria.
"Turkey has no eye on any part of Syrian territory,” Fidan said. "Turkey has the strength, the capacity, and above all, the determination to eliminate all threats to its survival at their source," he said.
Ilham Ahmed, co-chair of foreign affairs for the Kurdish administration in northern Syria, has told France’s TV5 Monde that "The United States and France could indeed secure the entire border," in a bid to deter Turkey's threats.
"We are ready for this military coalition to assume this responsibility,” Ahmed said.
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