Trump threatens Turkey with economic devastation if it attacks Syrian Kurd militia

President Donald Trump threatened Turkey with economic devastation if it attacks a U.S.-allied Kurdish militia in Syria, weakening the Turkish lira and prompting sharp criticism from Ankara on January 14.

Relations between the two NATO allies have been strained over U.S. backing for the Kurdish YPG, which Turkey views as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that is waging a decades-long insurgency on Turkish soil.

A diplomatic crisis last year, when Trump imposed sanctions on two of President Tayyip Erdogan's ministers and raised tariffs on Turkish metal exports, pushed the Turkish lira to a record low in August.

Trump said on January 13 that the U.S. was starting the military pullout from Syria that he announced in December but that it would continue to hit Islamic State fighters there.

The lira slid as much as 1.6% to 5.5450 against the dollar.

Turkey's presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Trump should respect Washington's alliance with Ankara.

“Terrorists can't be your partners & allies. Turkey expects the US to honor our strategic partnership and doesn't want it to be shadowed by terrorist propaganda,” spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on January 14.

Trump gave no details about the safe zone proposal. He announced



last month he would withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, declaring they had succeeded in their mission to defeat the Islamic State group and were no longer needed.

However, U.S. officials have given mixed messages since then. The U.S.-led coalition said on January 11 it had started the pullout but officials said later it involved only equipment, not troops.

The Kurdish YPG has been a U.S. ally in the fight against the jihadists and it controls swaths of northern Syria. Erdogan has vowed to crush it in the wake of Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops out of the region. Erdogan's communications director Fahrettin Altun said “Turkey will continue its anti-terror fight decisively” and that it was a protector of the Kurds, not their enemy. “Terror is terror and it must be eradicated at its source. This is exactly what Turkey is doing in Syria,” he wrote on Twitter.

Turkey has swept YPG fighters from Syria's Afrin region and other areas west of the Euphrates river in military campaigns over the past two years. It is now threatening to strike east of the river, which it has avoided until now — partly to avoid direct confrontation with U.S. forces.

An official from the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of militias led by the YPG, said on January 13 Islamic State militants were “living their final moments” in the last enclave they hold near the Iraqi border.