WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Cook explained that a number of the fighters now in Manbij may be Kurds who lived in the city before it was occupied by Daesh.
"There are local forces in Manbij now that are security Manbij against the threat of [Daesh] returning, and we’ll continue to address Turkish concerns about the makeup of those forces, but we heard very publicly from the YPG that they were moving east of the Euphrates," Cook told reporters.
On Friday, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Turkey was still waiting for the United States to deliver on its promise of ensuring the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) had left Manbij.
Ankara considers the PYD and YPG to be extensions of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), a designated terror group in Turkey as well as in the United States.
