Türkiye is taking the claims that the United States is about to withdraw its troops from northeastern Syria with a grain of salt, the Turkish Defense Ministry said Thursday.
"Until we see any official statement or execution, these kinds of rumors must be approached with caution," the ministry’s press representative Rear Adm. Zeki Aktürk told reporters in Ankara during a weekly briefing.
"Türkiye continues closely monitoring any regional development on security and defense," Aktürk said without elaborating.
The official was responding to a question about claims from the U.S.-based journal Foreign Policy that President Joe Biden’s administration is reconsidering its military priorities in the region since Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the resulting Israeli military campaign that killed over 26,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Tensions and hostilities across the Middle East have been escalating since.
While claiming no definitive decision has been made to leave, Foreign Policy said Washington could fully withdraw its troops from Syria, which it argued would be "a gift" for Daesh terrorists in the region.
Citing four sources within the Defense and State departments, the journal said the White House is "no longer invested in sustaining a mission that it perceives as unnecessary."
The move could ease some of the strain between Washington and Ankara, which is fighting the PKK terrorist group's Syrian branch YPG in the region.
The U.S. has had approximately 900 troops on the ground in Syria, particularly in Hassakeh and Raqqa provinces, since 2014 when it launched Operation Inherent Resolve as part of the international fight against Daesh.
The operation served as deterrence to the terrorist group whose presence in Iraq and Syria was significantly reduced during its peak.
But Türkiye questioned why the U.S. turned to the YPG, the Syrian wing of the PKK, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S.
The U.S. left its bases in northern Syria after Türkiye launched its Peace Spring operation in October 2019 against the PKK/YPG, concentrating its military near oil fields.
Washington, however, maintained its support for the terrorist group, from troops training their members to military equipment, helping it grow stronger in occupied regions close to the Turkish border.
Their presence inevitably led to a confrontation with Turkish forces, as well, when last year, the U.S. downed a Turkish drone targeting PKK/YPG terrorists, to the chagrin of Ankara.
The issue strains Turkish-U.S. ties as Ankara warns its NATO ally against aiding terror elements that threaten its national security, something Washington continues to do despite promising to remove the group from the Turkish border area.
82 terrorists killed
Aktürk on Thursday also confirmed the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) eliminated 82 terrorists in the past week in the north of Syria and Iraq, raising the number of terrorists killed since January 2023 to 2,478 in total.
These terrorists included members of the PKK, the YPG, Daesh and the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), the official informed.
"In Syria, PKK/YPG terrorists conducted attacks and opened harassment fire on Turkish forces 17 times in the past week. Fifty-six PKK/YPG members were eliminated in retaliatory strikes," Aktürk noted.
Türkiye has ramped up airstrikes and counterterrorism operations in the north of Syria, as well as in Iraq where the PKK/YPG terrorists killed 21 Turkish soldiers near the border in less than a month.