WASHINGTON _ In an effort to stem fast-worsening ties, Turkey and the United States agreed Friday to set up a diplomatic working group to defuse a bitter dispute over Kurdish militias operating in Syria.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, ending two days of talks with top Turkish officials, conceded that serious disagreements continue to haunt relations between Turkey and the United States, which are NATO allies.
"We find ourselves at a bit of a crisis point in the relationship," Tillerson said at a news conference with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, in the capital of Ankara.
"The important point ... is we're not going to act alone any longer," he added. "We're not going to be U.S. doing one thing and Turkey doing another. We are going to act together from this point forward. We're going to lock arms, we're going to work through the issues that are causing difficulties for us."
The working group will handle disagreements starting in mid-March, Tillerson said.
Turkey is outraged over U.S. military support for Kurdish militias fighting in northern Syria, close to the Turkish border.
Ankara regards them as allied with Kurdish insurgents who have sought to topple the Turkish government. Washington has worked closely with the Kurdish militias to battle Islamic State in Syria.
The issue came to a head after Turkey launched a ground and air assault last month against Kurdish forces in Afrin, in northwest Syria.
Ankara threatened to also attack a Kurdish-controlled enclave in Manbij, where U.S. troops are deployed, raising fears of a direct clash between U.S. and Turkish forces. The Kurds seized Manbij from Islamic State in 2016.
