Ankara has lost access to important information on the militants. The US administration decided to freeze cooperation with Turkey as part of a secret intelligence-sharing program. This was reported by Reuters, referring immediately to four Washington sources familiar with the situation.
According to reports, the program assisted the Turkish authorities in confronting the Kurdistan Workers Party, which Ankara, like Washington, recognized as a terrorist group. For more than ten years, this program has provided Turkey with data on the activity of the Kurds, which were collected using unmanned aerial vehicles. With its freezing, Ankara will have to spend much more resources on collecting information.
Washington adopted this after the Turkish Armed Forces launched an offensive in northeast Syria as part of Operation Source of Peace. Then Ankara intended to defeat the Kurdish group “Syrian Democratic Forces”, which enjoyed the support of the United States.
The Pentagon did not confirm information about such a decision, but did not refute it. Thus, a spokeswoman for the US Department of Defense said that “for political reasons” this kind of information was not disclosed to the agency. At the same time, she assured that Washington supports Ankara in the fight against the PKK.
Journalists also tried to get a comment from the US State Department, but the diplomatic service refused to make statements about this.