The leader of Turkey’s biggest nationalist party in parliament on Tuesday blasted U.S. President Donald Trump as “null and void.”
“Trump seeing the PKK/PYD/YPG as Kurds, defining the terrorists as Kurds, is clearly dishonorable, and clear insolence,” Devlet Bahceli, head of the opposition Nationalist Movement Party, told his party’s parliamentary group on Tuesday.
Bahceli’s remarks came after Trump on Sunday threatened to “devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds,” conflating “Kurds” with the terrorist PYD/YPG, a conflation that Turkey has repeatedly criticized.
Bahceli said Trump’s tweeted remarks put the long-lasting alliance between Ankara and Washington “into intensive care.”
“The NATO alliance is in a coma. A US president who prefers terrorists to Turkey is null and void in our eyes,” said Bahceli.
He added: “I say to Trump, we could be starved, we could be down and out, we could be subjected to economic losses, but if we resign ourselves to you, if we hope for help from you, shame on us! ”
Following the surprise announcement in December that U.S. forces would leave Syria, U.S. officials said the withdrawal was conditional on Turkey not attacking the “Kurds,” meaning the terrorist PKK/YPG.
Turkish officials attacked the U.S. conflation of “Kurds” with the terror group, saying the forthcoming Turkish operation in Syria targets a terrorist group which threatens Arabs, Turkmens, and Kurds in Syria alike.
In its 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK has taken some 40,000 lives. The YPG/PYD is its Syrian branch.
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