Obama, Erdogan Discuss Ongoing Bilateral Cooperation Against Terrorism

Barack Obama in a phone call with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated the importance of bilateral cooperation between the two nations to defeat Daesh.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — US President Barack Obama in a phone call with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated the importance of bilateral cooperation between the two nations to defeat the Islamic State terror group (ISIL, or Daesh), the White House said in a statement.

"The two leaders discussed the situation in Syria and agreed on the urgency of continued efforts to degrade and defeat ISIL [Daesh] and to disrupt ISIL’s capacity to conduct terrorist operations in Turkey, Europe and beyond," the statement said on Tuesday.

Additionally, Obama and Erdogan discussed enhancing bilateral cooperation against terrorism in general, which the White House noted included mention of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The PKK is an outlawed terrorist group by many nations, including the United States and Turkey, but Washington and Ankara have been at odds over the group’s alleged affiliation with the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a US-supported group fighting Daesh in Syria.

The PYD claims that its participation in Syrian peace talks has been blocked by Ankara because of Turkey’s insistence that it is linked to the PKK, an allegation the United States has not supported.