Turkey to implement Manbij model in Syria, says FM

By Yusuf Hatip and Serife Çetin

BRUSSELS

Turkey will implement the Manbij model in other parts of Syria, especially in the east of Euphrates River, Turkey’s foreign minister said on Friday.

In a news conference following a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels, Mevlut Cavusoglu said he discussed a previously agreed-upon roadmap on Syria with newly appointed U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

"We will implement the Manbij model in other parts of Syria, especially in the east of Euphrates [River] after approval of this roadmap. Thus, we will have taken a step together on an issue that causes tension in bilateral relations."

Cavusoglu said that the foreign ministers had a conversation on approving a roadmap that would lead to the implementation of the Manbij model.

Turkey's top diplomat refers to the Manbij model as Turkey's initiative to remove terrorists groups YPG/PKK from the region with the cooperation of the U.S.

In a March interview with Anadolu Agency, Cavusoglu said that should the plan fail, Ankara would unilaterally take steps to "eliminate" the PKK-linked YPG from the Syrian border.

On Friday, Cavusoglu recalled that the U.S. had promised not to provide arms to the YPG terrorist group and to withdraw their forces from Manbij.

"We saw that these promises were not kept. We created work groups to see if these promises were being kept or not," he said.

Cavusoglu said Turkey would act with the U.S. in Manbij.