On Monday, a source in Turkiye’s Foreign Ministry said Ankara summoned the US ambassador to it Jeff Flake to express its annoyance at the visit of a senior US military official to northeastern Syria earlier this week.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price said later yesterday that the ambassador went to the Turkish foreign ministry for meetings and discussions.
The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, made a surprise visit on March 4 to follow up on a US mission that was sent nearly 8 years ago to an area controlled by the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces.
Price told reporters that what the State Department knows is that Milley only met US forces while he was in Syria, and he referred reporters to the Department of Defense for details.
The Syrian Democratic Forces, a key ally of the US-led coalition against Islamic State, played a key role in defeating the militant group in Syria, but US support for the group has caused tension with Turkiye for years.
Ankara considers the People's Protection Units, which leads the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Syrian wing of the outlawed separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and lists them both as terrorist organizations.
The US and the EU also classify the PKK as a terrorist group, but they do not include the YPG under the same designation.
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