23 March 2018•Update: 23 March 2018
By Kasim Ileri
WASHINGTON
Shortly before being named the new U.S. national security advisor, John Bolton linked the terrorist YPG/PKK in Syria to the PKK, a group that has taken over 40,000 lives in Turkey in a 30-year terror campaign.
Appearing on Fox News on March 14, Bolton was asked about the U.S. supporting groups in Syria such as the terrorist YPG/PKK.
“This is, I think, part of the inadequate strategy from [Barack] Obama that the Trump administration continued," said Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the UN.
"We supported the Kurds, we supported the Iraqi government … to defeat” Daesh, Bolton continued. "But what we didn’t adequately recognize is that these particular Kurdish forces are allied with a Marxist Kurdish group inside Turkey, that the Turkish government has been fighting for many years," later specifying, “the PKK, as they’re known.”
Bolton went on to say that arming the YPG/PKK terrorist group, the PKK's armed Syrian is an "indication of how complicated the circumstances were and how I don’t think that the original anti-ISIS [Daesh] strategy was well thought out."
President Donald Trump on Thursday named Bolton the next U.S. national security advisor, effective April 4.
Since the Obama administration, the U.S. has supported and even armed the terrorist YPG/PKK, calling it an “effective ally” against Daesh.
The Trump administration has largely continued that policy, despite Turkey documenting how the group is the Syrian branch of the PKK, a group recognized as terrorist by the U.S., EU, and Turkey.
Bolton’s comments also came amid the Turkish-led Operation Olive Branch, which was launched on Jan. 20 to remove YPG/PKK and Daesh terrorists from Afrin, northwestern Syria, across Turkey’s southern border.
Turkish leaders have said an operation in Manbij, Syria could follow, and have warned the U.S. that the presence of YPG/PKK forces there will not be tolerated.
