The Foreign Ministry summoned US Ambassador John Bass to a meeting in Ankara on Tuesday after the State Department said publicly on Monday that it doesn’t consider the Syrian Kurds to be terrorists.
Turkey deems the Democratic Union Party, known by its Kurdish acronym PYD, to be a terrorist group as an offshoot of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. While the US, like Turkey, classifies the PKK as a terror group, it has lauded the Syrian PYD as an effective organization in countering Daesh (ISIL) militants.
Tensions over that difference in views have been building for months. On Monday, State Department spokesman John Kirby said at a news briefing in Washington that the US doesn’t consider the PYD to be terrorist.
“We don’t, as you know, recognize the PYD as a terrorist organization. We recognize that the Turks do, and I understand that,” Mr. Kirby said.
Turkey's Foreign Ministry called in Mr. Bass after those remarks to express the government’s displeasure.The State Department confirmed the meeting took place, but declined to describe the tone or subject of the meeting, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The support that the US-led coalition against Daesh has voiced for the PYD and other groups closely associated with the PKK, has been an irritant in the US-Turkey relationship over the past several months.
The tensions bubbled over late last month when Vice President Joe Biden was in Turkey, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week. During that trip, Turkish officials presented Mr. Biden with what they described as evidence of ties between the Syrian and Turkish Kurdish groups.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week harshly criticized Brett McGurk, a presidential envoy in matters involving Daesh, for photos showing him with a PYD commander widely believed to be a former member of the PKK.