WASHINGTON
American media outlets have been virtually silent on their government’s "respect" for a deal between the PKK/PYD and Daesh that allows Daesh fighters and their families to flee Raqqa, Syria.
“This was a local solution to a local issue, and it demonstrated the importance and power of local governance,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “The central priority here was the protection of civilian lives & the arrangement was reached by our partners and their local affiliates.
“Part of the by/with/through approach is that we might not fully agree with our partners at all times, but we have to respect their solutions to their own issues,” it added.
The deal between the U.S. allied-PKK/PYD and Daesh that was first reported by the BBC, has not received any meaningful coverage in the international media, too. It allowed 350 Daesh fighters and more than 4,000 of their family members to leave Raqqa.
The PKK/PYD is considered by Ankara as the Syrian offshoot of the PKK terror group that has waged a more than 30-year war against the Turkish state.
Although the deal has not received any significant publicity in the media, including from CNN, the Washington Post, New York Times and NBC News, reporters from Anadolu Agency have worked to uncover the use of the American public and authorities to affect the agenda of the PKK/PYD.
Beginning in late 2014, the U.S began air support for the PKK/PYD and a year later its armed the group as it fought in Syria.
Asked by an Anadolu Agency reporter if the arms in question were delivered to the PKK/PYD, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said only a portion was given to the terror group.
The Pentagon soon realized that response was problematic to U.S discourse with its NATO ally, Turkey, and it issued a correction that said the arms went only to the Syrian Arab Coalition and not the PKK/PYD.
Correspondents for Anadolu Agency have closely monitored PKK/PYS activities and have been meet with resistance from Lieut.-Gen. Stephen Townsend, who has had close contact with the terror group.
The former commander of the U.S.-led anti-Daesh coalition, was visibly frustrated when Anadolu Agency pressed him in April about the not-too-secret independent aspirations of the terror group that has built and combined autonomous areas in the region.
Townsend tried to push back and suggested Anadolu Agency was pursuing “a political agenda, because your question doesn’t seem neutral.”
A month earlier, Townsend said he was given assurance by the group's leaders "they had no desire to attack Turkey."
The reporter later received an apology from Navy Capt. Jeff Davis and a separate apology from a spokesman for U.S. central command (CENTCOM).
Taking the issue of the PKK/PYD straight to the top uniformed military official in U.S., the Joints Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, has drawn silence.
After Raqqa was cleared of Daesh fighters last month, the PKK/PYD hung posters of Abdullah Ocalan and dedicated the seize to the convicted PKK terrorist leader who has been jailed in Turkey since 1999. The group said it took control of the city thanks to Ocalan’s ideology.
Again, on that issue, American media outlets have been also silent, except for the conservative Fox News network.
Shortly after the seize of Raqqa, a Pentagon spokesman said Washington would continue to back the PKK/PYD. That announcement appeared to catch the anti-Daesh coalition by surprise and it released a statement that suggested it didn’t approve of the position.
Anadolu Agency has continued to keep alive the matter of machinations of the PKK/PYD American officials have tried to dodge the issue and elude the tough questions that ultimately expose Washington’s support for a terror group it labels as such.
Relations between the U.S. and PKK/PYD in Syria, the terror’s group’s activities in northern Syria and civilian deaths in coalition attacks are among the concerns put forward by Anadolu Agency reporters. The agency has also probed the U.S.’s approach and policies in Syria and Iraq, and helped to force the Rohingya crisis to be a priority issue at the State Department.
At a news conference in October, Dunford and Brett McGurk, the U.S. president's special envoy to the coalition, it was an Anadolu Agency reporter who asked whether the U.S. agreed with the PKK/PYD about Ocalan’s ideology and whether it has communicated with the terror group.
Dunford failed to address concerns about Ocalan’s ideology but condemned the PKK/PYD as a terror organization and said the U.S. shares the same PKK definition with Turkey. McGurk declined to comment.
Anadolu Agency reporters also made the U.S. approach and policies towards Syria and Iraq issue, alongside Rohingya crisis a current issue in the U.S Department of State.
Reported by Kasim Ileri and Hakan Copur; writing by Ahmet Sait Akcay and Cansu Dikme
