According to the Turkish presidency’s statement, Obama condemned the bomb attack in the Turkish capital Ankara Wednesday that left 28 people dead and 81 others injured.
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But Max Abrahms, professor of political science at Northeastern University and a member of the US Council on Foreign Relations think-tank, said the US would “not back away from the collaboration with the YPG even if attacks in Turkey are attributed to Kurdish terrorists”.
ReutersCars of emergency services arrive after an explosion in Ankara, Turkey, February 17, 2016.Davutoglu said that Turkey expects cooperation from its allies against the YPG and PKK both of which the government considers to be terrorist groups.
The TAK first came to the attention of Western media in recent months after it launched a mortar bomb attack on Sabiha Gokcen airport in Istanbul in December. Russia, which has been carrying out air strikes in support of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s forces, has urged the United Nations to press Turkey to halt its shelling of Kurdish forces in the country’s north.
The Ankara claims, however, were met with skepticism from the US.
“But I really wonder, at this corner [pointing to the scene of attack] 28 Turkish citizens were killed by PYD in Ankara and how many more Turkish citizens should be killed by YPG, PYD and PKK together that our American friends should believe that PYD is a terrorist organization?” he asked.
“The first thing they did after the attack was to blame us”, YPG spokesman Redur Xelil told the pro-Kurdish Firat agency.
Russian Federation pledged to defend Kurdish militia in Syria in the case of the Turkish invasion.
The Kurdish group denies any involvement in the bombing.
TAK has in the past said its relationship with PKK militants has been severed.
Within hours of the Ankara attack, Turkish warplanes bombed bases in northern Iraq of the PKK, which has waged a three-decade insurgency against Turkey and which Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused of collaborating in the vehicle bombing.
Mr Mevlut Cavusoglu said US Secretary of State John Kerry had told him the Kurdish insurgents could not be trusted, in what Mr Cavusoglu said was a departure from Washington’s official position. Turkish authorities say they have confirmed without “the slightest doubt” the YPG is responsible, although the US said Thursday it has not independently confirmed that claim from its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally. Ankara strongly opposes the SDF, which is composed mostly of Kurdish fighters and has become one of the most effective forces on the ground fighting the Islamic State group.
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It has also been battling PKK militants in its own southeast where a 2-1/2 year ceasefire collapsed last July, plunging the region into its worst violence since the 1990s.
