US needs to withdraw from Syria's Manbij region immediately, says Turkey

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says US military forces need to immediately withdraw from Syria's northern region of Manbij as Turkish troops are engaged in an operation in the Arab country’s Afrin region against militants from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

Speaking to reporters in the capital Ankara on Saturday, Cavusoglu said Turkey wanted to see concrete steps by the United States to end its support for the Syrian Kurdish force.

The remarks came hours after the Turkish presidency announced in a statement that Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin and US National Security Adviser Herbert Raymond McMaster had discussed Turkey’s ongoing Operation Olive Branch in Syria's northwestern Afrin region during a telephone conversation the previous night.

McMaster said that Washington would not give more weapons to YPG militants.   

The two senior officials also agreed to boost mutual coordination and clear up misunderstandings on issues concerning Syria, the statement added.

Also on Saturday, the Turkish General Staff said in a statement that at least 394 YPG militants had been killed since the beginning of Operation Olive Branch in Afrin on January 20.

The military said that only terrorists and their positions and shelters were being destroyed, and that “careful attention” was being paid not to harm any civilian.

Meanwhile, more than 10,000 people demonstrated in Cologne, Germany, on Saturday to denounce the Turkish offensive in northern Syria against YPG militants.

The demonstrators held placards that read “Freedom for Kurdistan” and “Shame on you, Europe!” in the western German city.

The Syrian government has already condemned the “brutal Turkish aggression” against Afrin, rejecting Ankara’s claim about having informed Damascus of the operation.

Damascus "strongly condemns the brutal Turkish aggression on Afrin, which is an inseparable part of Syrian territory," Syria’s official news agency, SANA, cited a Syrian Foreign Ministry source as saying last week.

SS