Story highlights
Among the disagreements: Whether the fight against ISIS is over or not
Turkey wants the US to reclaim weapons it gave a Kurdish fighting group
Turkey’s attacks on Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria are stripping bare deep tensions with the United States and are sure to be a topic of discussion in a call between President Donald Trump and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that’s set for Wednesday.
The Turkish assault on Afrin, controlled by a US-allied group of Syrian Kurds called the YPG, is just the latest source of friction between the two NATO allies. The two countries have sparred over a slew of issues in recent years, including the fate of a US-based cleric Turkey accuses of a coup attempt, visas to each other’s countries, Turkey’s entanglements with Iran and its detention of an American pastor.
The disconnect is such that the two countries don’t agree on whether the YPG is a terrorist group or whether ISIS has been defeated.