ANKARA: The street in Ankara where the US embassy is located was renamed after Turkey´s offensive against a Kurdish militia on Monday, just days after the two sides agreed on the need to normalise relations.
Already tense ties were strained further when Ankara started a ground and air offensive dubbed "Olive Branch" last month against the Kurdish People´s Protection Units (YPG) in its enclave of Afrin in western Syria.
Ankara views the YPG as a terrorist offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers´ Party (PKK), an insurgency in Turkey which is listed as a terror organisation by the US and the European Union. But in Syria, Washington has been providing arms to the YPG against the Islamic State group, much to Ankara´s chagrin in a dispute that has ignited the biggest crisis in bilateral ties since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.The US has previously called on Ankara for restraint and said operation "Olive Branch" risked becoming a distraction from the fight against Jihadists in Syria. The renaming of the street follows a visit by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Ankara last week when he met Turkish officials including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the two sides agreed to cooperate in Syria. "We are not going to act alone any longer, not US doing one thing, Turkey doing another," Tillerson said after talks with Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu.
02-20-2018, 01:10 PM
Turkey renames US embassy street
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