Rubio, Trump’s secretary of state candidate, signals continued US support for PKK/YPG

Marco Rubio, nominated by President-elect Donald Trump for the position of secretary of state, highlighted the importance of continued U.S. support for the YPG during his Senate confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Türkiye considers the YPG a terrorist organization.

The YPG, a Syrian offshoot of the PKK, aims to establish a terror corridor along Türkiye’s border, posing a significant threat to the country. The PKK—listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the U.S., and the EU—has waged a 40-year campaign against Türkiye, responsible for over 40,000 deaths, including women, children and elderly.

Rubio’s comments have drawn attention from Turkish social media as the U.S. prepares for Trump’s second term as president, set to begin on Jan. 20.

Senator Chris Van Hollen questions Rubio

U.S. Senator for Maryland Chris Van Hollen speaking at a nomination hearing on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said, “The volatile situation in the Middle East, you know we often talk about the importance of shifting our focus to China in the Indo Pacific but we always seem to get dragged back into conflicts in the Middle East.”

“I want to start with Syria, good riddance to the murderous Assad regime obviously we have a stake in what comes next in Syria, given the fact it’s a very volatile part of the world. I support the very cautious engagement of the Biden administration with HTS but we should acknowledge their ‘poisonous genealogy’, beginning with al-Qaida morphing in a Nusra Front,” Hollen said.

She continued, “The other issue of course in Syria that when you’ve got a situation like we see today there are opportunities for Daesh to get further back on its feet, to provide more oxygen. As you know the tip of the spear in our fight against Daesh has been our Syrian Kurdish partners, the SDF, but at this moment President (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan of Türkiye has been backing attacks of the so-called Syrian National Army which Türkiye largely controls against our partners, the Syrian Kurds which opens the door to a revival of Daesh because of the actions of the United States Government, Türkiye so far paused that effort, Senator Graham and I have reintroduced legislation to impose sanctions on Türkiye should renew those attacks in a aggressive way.”

‘There are implications to abandoning partners’

When Hollen asked, “We talked about this, I know that you recognize of that partnership with the Syrian Kurds but just a very straightforward question. Do you agree that we should continue to support our partners, the SDF in the fight against Daesh?”

Rubio answered the question by commenting, “Yeah, well absolutely not only that but I think we also need to recognize that there are implications to abandoning partners who have a great sacrifice and threat actually jailed the Daesh fighters. The one of the reasons why we were able to dismantle Daesh because of they were willing to host them in jails like a great personal threat to them and obviously that situation is very tenous.”

‘Opportunity in Syria’

Marco Rubio stated that it is in the national interest of the United States to have a Syria that is no longer a playground for Daesh, respects religious minorities, including Alawites and Christians, protects the Kurds, and does not serve as a vehicle for Iran to spread terrorism through Hezbollah and destabilize Lebanon, as well as other regions.