Aleppo unrest was Kurdish fighters’ bid to wreck Turkiye peace process: Erdogan’s party

ISTANBUL: Recent deadly clashes in Syria’s Aleppo were an attempt by Kurdish fighters to sabotage Turkiye’s efforts to end a decades-long conflict with the Kurdish militant PKK group, Ankara’s ruling party said Monday.
“The YPG/SDF terrorist organization’s attacks and the operation in Aleppo… is an attempt to sabotage the goal of a terror-free Turkiye,” said Omer Celik, spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AKP, referring to the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Over the past year, Turkiye has been engaged in efforts to draw a line under its four-decade conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which it refers to as the “terror-free Turkiye” process.
Last year, the PKK announced an end to its armed struggle and began destroying its weapons, but Turkiye has insisted that the move include armed Kurdish groups in Syria, which Ankara sees as PKK offshoots.
Turkiye has long been hostile to the SDF that controls swathes of northeastern Syria, seeing it as a major threat along its southern border and repeatedly calling for its integration into the Syrian military and security apparatus.
That was supposed to have happened by the end of 2025 under a deal reached in March, but implementation has stalled over sharp differences between the sides, notably Kurdish demands for decentralized rule.
The tensions descended into violence last week, which only ended on Sunday as Syrian government forces took full control of Aleppo.
The standoff between Damascus and the SDF has had a chilling effect on Turkiye’s domestic peace moves, which have largely stalled.