Turkish soldiers hold their positions on the outskirts of Suruc, at the Turkey-Syria border, overlooking Kobani, Syria, during fighting between Syrian Kurds and ISIL, Oct. 12, 2014.
71 members of the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD) were killed in northern Syria over the past week, Turkish General Staff said in a statement on Friday.
The statement the killed fighters as “PYD members” while in fact killed people were likely members of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), a military branch of the PYD, are the core of the US-backed SDF.
Ankara says that the PYD is a Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) outlawed in Turkey. In turn, PYD sources argue that they have no links with the PKK.
Thus, Turkey and its proxies just fight US-backed forces in northern Syria.
