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‘Turkey no longer acting as US deputy in NATO’: Analyst

Thursday, 24 August 2017 9:19 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 25 August 2017 7:12 AM ]

This file photo taken on September 02, 2016 shows Turkish soldiers driving back to Turkey from the Syrian-Turkish border town of Jarabulus. (Photo by AFP)

Turkey’s plan for a joint operation with Iran against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants is a “big deal” for the United States because Washington does not like members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to act independently, says an analyst.

“America’s tentacles are wide and Turkey, a NATO member who is now engaged in security operations with Iran that will almost certainly be against the mutual Kurdish threat, this is a big deal to the United States because the United States does not have partners. It has dependents and it has deputies,” Adam Garrie, editor of theDuran.com, told Press TV’s ‘On The News Line’ program.

“Turkey is no longer acting like a deputy in NATO. It is acting like a free and sovereign nation and President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan will soon find out that America does not like countries in NATO exercising their own prerogative even when it is clear it is in their own self-interest as this rapprochement, as these good relations between Ankara and Tehran certainly are,” he added.

Turkey’s President Erdogan said on Monday that a joint Turkish-Iranian operation against Kurdish militants was "always on the agenda."

However, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has dismissed reports about plans for a joint operation with Turkey against the PKK militants outside the Iranian borders.

Turkey has been fighting against the outlawed PKK militants for decades.

Iran is also fighting PJAK, a PKK offshoot, in its northwestern border region with Turkey. Iranian forces killed five PJAK terrorists in an ambush there last June.

PJAK randomly carries out hit-and-run attacks on Iranian targets, after which they retreat to their lairs in Iraq and Turkey.

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