“Corrective action has been taken and we have communicated as much to our military partners and our military allies in the region”, U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren told reporters.
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The U.S. Defense Department has said its troops often wear the insignias of the fighters they are with in order to better blend in.
Ankara accuses the YPG militia of being a terrorist organization connected to the Kurdish rebel group the PKK, which Turkish security forces are now fighting.
Ankara has repeatedly said it makes no distinction between “terror” organisations, be it IS, the PKK or the YPG.
Warren said the primary role of the 200 or so advisers in Syria is to work with the Syrian Arab forces pressuring Raqqah under the umbrella group known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is primarily Kurdish.
“We do have special operations forces in Syria”, Cook said, adding that they are an “advise-and-assist mission” with forces that carry out the fight against ISIS and they “are not at the front line”.
The U.S. military made a rare admission of wrongdoing Friday after Turkey complained about widely published photographs of U.S. commandos wearing Kurdish militia badges during an offensive targeting the Islamic State near the militants’ Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.
They also consider materially every other significant Kurdish faction in the world as part of the PKK, and insist that they don’t see any difference between any of these groups and ISIS.
Cavusoglu insisted that in private talks with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry the United States had said the YPG “are not reliable” and vowed Washington would “stand by Turkey in the fight against terrorism”.
It is suspected that he is third Australian national who has died alongside Kurdish forces.
A United States military spokesman responded by saying that the use of the patches had been “unauthorized and inappropriate”, adding the soldiers had been asked to remove them.
The federal government has repeatedly warned Australians not to join the conflict in Syria, stressing they are breaking the law regardless of which side they are fighting for.
Almost 5,000 PKK terrorists have been killed in operations across Turkey and northern Iraq.
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Since then, almost 500 members of the security forces, including troops, police officers and village guards have been martyred and over 4,900 PKK terrorists killed in operations across Turkey and northern Iraq.
