Blinken visits Turkey as tensions escalate over proxies in Syria

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has landed in Turkey amid brewing tensions between Washington and Ankara over US-backed Kurdish forces in northern Syria. 

A US official said that Blinken went straight into talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the airport late on Thursday.

Washington's top diplomat flew in from Jordan where he reportedly discussed fallout from the collapse of the Syrian government.

Turkey was expected to put heavy emphasis on its security concerns in Syria, where it has been fighting a Kurdish-led force.

Just before Blinken boarded a flight to Turkey, he said the role of a Washington-backed Kurdish-led force was "critical" to allegedly preventing a resurgence of the Daesh terrorist group following the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

"Critical to making sure that doesn't happen are the so-called SDF -- the Syrian Democratic Forces," he added.

Washington has long backed the SDF as a key proxy in Syria, but its support for the militants who control much of Syria's northeast has put it sharply at odds with Ankara.

For Turkey, the single most crucial aim remains the eradication of the SDF, which it regards as a terrorist group linked to Ankara's proscribed PKK movement.

While the US maintains approximately 900 troops in northeastern Syria, Turkish officials have long criticized US support for the group.

The Turkish military targeted Kurdish forces in northern Syria this weekend, illuminating the tangle of competing interests and alliances in Syria in the wake of the government’s collapse.

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Earlier this week Turkey-backed forces seized the northern city of Manbij from the SDF, which then headed east of the Euphrates River.

Fighting erupted on Saturday in Manbij near Syria’s border with Turkey between groups backed by the United States and those by Turkey. At least 22 SDF members were killed and 40 others wounded.

The clashes preceded a call on Sunday between Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and his Turkish counterpart Defense Minister Yasar Guler.

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Turkey views the force as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has led a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state, effectively blacklisting the SDF as a terror outfit.

Both Turkey and the United States are allies and NATO members. Though both countries have shared interests, their interests diverge over support for the Kurdish forces in northern Syria.

More than 40,000 people have been killed during the three-decade conflict between Turkey and the PKK, a designated terrorist organization by Ankara, Washington, and other NATO members.

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