People's Protection Units (YPG) terrorists may be releasing Daesh prisoners to get the U.S. involved in Turkey's Operation Peace Spring, President Donald Trump said Monday.
The YPG has been trying to use captured Daesh terrorists as a bargaining chip, hoping to provoke the West against Turkey by issuing false statements saying Ankara was targeting the camp with strikes.
"(Daesh prisoners) Easily recaptured by Turkey or European Nations from where many came, but they should move quickly," Trump said in a tweet.
Trump also asked, "Do people really think we should go to war with NATO Member Turkey?"
The U.S. president again announced plans to impose sanctions against Turkey over its anti-terror operation in northern Syria.
Several reports said Sunday that YPG terrorists deliberately set free hundreds of Daesh prisoners held in a camp near the town of Ayn Issa.
Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring, the third in a series of cross-border anti-terror operations in northern Syria targeting terrorists affiliated with Daesh and the PKK's Syrian offshoot the People's Protection Units (YPG), on Oct. 9 at 4 p.m.
The operation, conducted in line with the country's right to self-defense borne out of international law and U.N. Security Council resolutions, aims to establish a terror-free safe zone for Syrians return in the area east of the Euphrates River controlled by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is dominated by YPG terrorists.
The PKK — listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union — has waged a terror campaign against Turkey for more than 30 years, resulting in the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.
Turkey has long decried the threat from terrorists east of the Euphrates in northern Syria, pledging military action to prevent the formation of a "terrorist corridor" there.
Since 2016, Turkey's Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations in northwestern Syria have liberated the region from YPG/PKK and Daesh terrorists, making it possible for nearly 400,000 Syrians who fled the violence to return home.
