Ankara Uses Syrian Crisis to Serve Turkish Interests, Solve Kurds Issue

Sergio Divina, a member of Italian Lega Nord party, said that Turkey wants to exclude the Kurds from the ceasefire agreement equating them with the terrorist groups and this is not fair.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Ankara continues to use the situation in Syria to serve its geopolitical interests and in particular to solve the issue with the Kurdish opposition, Sergio Divina, a member of Italian Lega Nord party, said on the sidelines of the Parliamentary Assembly meeting in Vienna.

"Turkey wants to exclude the Kurds from the ceasefire agreement equating them with the terrorist groups and this is not fair. The problem is that Turkey continues to use the Syrian crisis for its geopolitical interests in the region while at the same time trying to solve the Kurds issue," Divina said.

Syrian Kurds have not been invited to the intra-Syrian talks. The Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) claims that its participation in the intra-Syrian talks was blocked by Ankara because of its assumed links to the pro-independence Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is active in southeastern Turkey and is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara. The PKK denies having any ties to the PYD.

Earlier in February, Turkish forces intensified shelling of areas held by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), the PYD’s military wing, in Syria’s Aleppo province. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that the shelling was a retaliatory measure to a recent terror attack in Ankara, allegedly conducted by Kurds. Washington and Moscow have both called on Ankara to stop the shelling.