PARIS: The United States is working to address Turkiye’s concerns in Syria to dissuade the Nato ally from escalating an offensive against Kurdish fighters, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.

Blinken said that Turkiye had “legitimate concerns” about PKK militants inside Syria and, following the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, called for a resolution in the country that includes the departure of “foreign terrorist fighters”.

“That’s a process that’s going to take some time, and in the meantime, what is profoundly not in the interest of everything positive we see happening in Syria would be a conflict, and we’ll work very hard to make sure that that doesn’t happen,” Blinken told reporters in Paris.

Turkiye has threatened an offensive against the Syrian Democratic Forces to eliminate PKK militants. The Kurdish-led SDF has been working with the United States for the past decade to fight the militant Islamic State group.

Blinken said he expected the incoming administration of Donald Trump also to show a “very strong interest” in ensuring that the IS does not “rear its ugly head again”. “A critical part of that is making sure that we enable the Syrian Democratic Forces to do the job that they’ve been doing,” he said.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2025