Turkey says it killed 15 Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq

PHOTO CAPTION: A Bayraktar TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicle is seen during a demonstration flight at Teknofest aerospace and technology festival in Baku, Azerbaijan May 27, 2022. REUTERS/Aziz Karimov

ISTANBUL (Reuters) -     Turkey said on Tuesday it had killed 13 Kurdish militants in northern Syria and two in Iraq, a sign that Ankara has pressed on with its campaign against fighters, some with possible links to U.S. allies, since Donald Trump took office in the White House last week.

The Turkish defence ministry said the Kurdish fighters it had "neutralised" in Syria belonged to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

Turkey considers the PKK and YPG to be identical; the United States considers them separate groups, having banned the PKK as terrorists but recruited the YPG as its main allies in Syria in the campaign against Islamic State.

Turkey has long called on Washington to withdraw support for the YPG, and has expressed hope that Trump would revise the policy inherited from the previous administration of President Joe Biden.

Tuesday's report of major clashes was the second within days: Turkey also reported having killed 13 Kurdish militants on Sunday. 

Turkish forces and their allies in Syria have repeatedly fought with Kurdish militants there since the toppling of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad last month.

Turkey has said that the Syrian Democratic Forces, a U.S.-backed umbrella group that includes the Kurdish YPG, must disarm or face a military intervention.

Under the Biden administration the United States has had 2,000 troops in Syria fighting alongside the SDF and YPG.

(This story has been refiled to correct the day of the week from Wednesday to Tuesday in paragraph 1)

 (Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Jonathan Spicer)