Turkey increasingly vocal against YPG’s foreign recruits
Turkey is growing increasingly angry because foreign individuals, including some from the United States, are joining the ranks of Kurdish forces in Syria.
A Turkish report about foreigners, including Americans, joining Kurds in Syria to fight against the Islamic State (IS) is attracting lots of media attention. The Turkish government fears these "non-Salafi/jihadi foreign fighters" might be strengthening the Kurds' war within a war: the effort to create a Kurdish state while simultaneously battling IS.
The report, prepared by the Turkish Police Academy and released in May, also warns that these fighters — who aren't necessarily motivated by religious or financial goals but rather by ideology — eventually will return to the West and pose as much danger as "radical 'Islamist' returnees."
