The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) has not completely withdrawn from Syria’s Manbij, said the Turkish Foreign Ministry on Monday, as the leaders of Turkey and the United States discussed their roadmap on the northern town.
Ankara and Washington reached a deal last month over the town after months of disagreement. Under the deal, the YPG would withdraw from Manbij and Turkish and US forces would maintain security and stability around the town.
On Sunday, the armed group controlling Manbij said the last YPG fighters had left after completing their mission of military training of local forces.
The Manbij Military Council has repeatedly said their were no YPG fighters there, only some YPG military advisers.
Ankara, however, said those reports are "exaggerated".
The foreign ministry stated the YPG is still pulling out of areas where Turkish and US forces have been conducting separate patrols.
“Withdrawal from the checkpoints on the patrol route is ongoing. Joint patrol preparations are continuing. Therefore, at this stage, reports that PYD/YPG have completely withdrawn from Manbij do not reflect the truth,” a source at the foreign ministry said.
The PYD is the political arm of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which is backed by the United States in the fight against ISIS. That support has infuriated Ankara, which sees the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
The PKK, considered a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union and Turkey, has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US President Donald Trump later held a phone call to discuss the importance of implementing the Manbij deal, the Turkish presidency said in a statement.
During Monday's phone call, the two leaders said the implementation of the Manbij roadmap would “significantly contribute” to the solution of Syria problem, the statement said.
It added that Erdogan and Trump also repeated their determination to further improve bilateral ties in all areas.
