Syrian Kurdish YPG should stop delaying Syria integration, Turkey says

By Tuvan Gumrukcu

ANKARA, Aug 13 (Reuters) - The Kurdish YPG militia, which heads the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), should stop "playing for time" and honour its agreement to integrate with the Syrian government, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Wednesday.

NATO-member Turkey has been one of Syria's main foreign allies after the ousting of Bashar al-Assad last year, while it considers both the SDF and YPG to be terrorist organisations.

The SDF, which controls much of northeast Syria, signed an agreement with Damascus in March to integrate into the Syrian state apparatus.

"The YPG/SDF must stop its policy of playing for time," Fidan told a press conference with his Syrian counterpart Asaad al-Shibani in Ankara.

"Just because we approach (the process) with good intentions does not mean we don't see your little ruses," Fidan said.

Fidan visited Damascus last week following clashes between the SDF and Syrian government forces in Manbij and Aleppo, and after weeks of tensions between Israel and Syria over fighting between Druze and Bedouin forces around Sweida last month.

"A new era has begun in the region and there's a new process in Turkey," Fidan said, referring to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group's decision to disarm and disband. The YPG "should benefit from those positive developments".

Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the PKK but the YPG has said the disarmament call of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan did not apply to it, contradicting Ankara's view.

"We witness some developments in Syria that we find hard to tolerate," Fidan said. "We see that members (of the YPG) who came from Turkey, Iraq and Iran have not left Syria."

Shibani criticised the SDF for holding a conference which called for a review of the constitutional declaration issued earlier this year by Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

He said the SDF was trying to exploit the violence in Sweida and decried the conference as a violation of the agreement to integrate the SDF into state institutions.

The SDF has been in conflict with Turkish-backed Syrian armed groups in northern Syria for years. Ankara has carried out several incursions against the YPG in the past and controls swathes of territory in northern Syria.

Following a meeting between the Syrian delegation and Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler later, the Turkish defence ministry said the sides signed a memorandum of understanding on military training and consultancy.

Ankara and Damascus had for months been negotiating a more comprehensive military cooperation agreement, and the memorandum signed on Wednesday marks the first step towards this, according to a Turkish defence ministry source.