Syrian wing of the internationally recognized terrorist group PKK, the YPG has hired a lobbying company in the U.S., according to an article published on Foreign Lobby, a website that documents influence operations.
"Republican political operative Jim Dornan has registered his firm Jim Dornan Strategies as an agent" of the terrorist group, the website said in the report published late Friday.
According to Foreign Lobby, the lobbying deal is immediately effective as the date is set as April 30.
"Dornan is a longtime Republican campaign operative and former congressional staffer who notably served as chief of staff to Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) when Burr served in the House of Representatives. Dornan declined to discuss his lobbying work for the YPG," Foreign Lobby added.
The U.S. has primarily partnered with the YPG in northeastern Syria in the anti-Daesh fight. On the other hand, U.S.' NATO ally Turkey strongly opposed the terrorist group’s presence in northern Syria, which has been a major sticking point in strained Turkey-U.S. relations. Ankara has long objected to the U.S.' support for the YPG, a group that poses a threat to Turkey and terrorizes local people, destroying their homes and forcing them to flee.
Under the pretext of fighting Daesh, the U.S. has provided military training and given truckloads of military support to the YPG, despite its NATO ally’s security concerns. While underlining that a country cannot support one terrorist group to fight another, Turkey conducted its own counterterrorism operations, over the course of which it has managed to remove a significant number of terrorists from the region.
Turkey has aimed to prevent the YPG from establishing a de facto autonomous region in northern Syria, which would border Turkey and connect the so-called northwestern Afrin canton to the so-called Kobani (Ain al-Arab) and Jazeera cantons in the northeast. Ankara describes this as a "terror corridor" posing a grave security threat to its national security, underlining its possible impact on the PKK’s activity within Turkish borders.
Local people living in areas held by the YPG have long suffered from its atrocities, as the terrorist group has a notorious record of human rights abuses in Syria, ranging from kidnappings, recruitment of child soldiers, torture, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement.
In its more than 40-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union – has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.