(MENAFN) If the United States wants to invite Kurds to the forthcoming Syrian peace talks it might as well invite the Islamic State (IS) group, said the foreign minister of Turkey, whose country views Kurdish fighters in Syria as extremists.
In detail, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG), have been Western allies in the Syrian conflict but are condemned by Turkey, which will co-host the peace talks in Kazakhstan with Russia set for 23 January.
Turkey calls the PYD a "terror group" for its links to Kurdish separatist militants in Turkey and has blasted the US repeatedly for working with the group on the ground in Syria.
A comment by a US State Department spokesman this week that Washington believes the PYD will "have to be a part of this process... at some point" infuriated Ankara.
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