France is abetting terrorists : Erdogan
Badhon : Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday accused France of abetting terrorists by ‘hosting them’ at the Elysee Palace, amid a diplomatic row between the NATO allies over Paris’s support for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
‘France, you are abetting terrorism, supporting it by then hosting them at the Elysee Palace,’ Erdogan told his supporters in the southwestern province of Denizli. ‘You will not be able to explain this. You will not be able to rid yourself of this terror burden. As long as the West nurtures these terrorists, you will sink,’ he said.
Relations between Ankara and Paris have been tense in recent weeks, with France one of the most vocal critics of Turkey’s two-month-old military operation in northern Syria against the Kurdish YPG, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization.
That came to a head on March 30 after President Emmanuel Macron met a Syrian delegation including the YPG and its political arm, the PYD, and gave assurances of French support to help stabilize northern Syria against Islamic State.
Turkey said the pledge amounted to support for terrorism and could make France a ‘target of Turkey’.