Syrian troops shift focus to IS-held east

President Donald Trump has brushed aside the vehement complaints of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally Turkey and authorized USA forces in Syria to arm the Kurdish YPG group leading the drive on the ISIS capital of Raqqa, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Ankara views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and the United States.

The U.S. said it would provide arms to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces to help them drive Islamic State militants from the extremists' de facto capital, Raqqa.

But Washington has adamantly resisted similarly designating the YPG, supplying it with ammunitions and heavy weapons, and using it as a principal partner in the ground war in the fight against Daesh in northern Syria.

The Pentagon did not immediately specify what types of support the USA would begin to supply under the new authorities, but a Defense official told Anadolu Agency it would include small arms, machine guns, ammunition, armoured vehicles, trucks and engineering equipment.

"We were troubled by that", Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said of Turkey's failure to give adequate warning of airstrikes in the Hasaka area.

Both Washington and Ankara consider the PKK a terrorist group, but the US military has long said the YPG represent the best fighters on the ground in Syria against ISIS. Erdogan wants to see the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia sidelined in the battles against Islamic State.

Defense Minister Fikri Isik and his USA counterpart James Mattis spoke over the phone on Tuesday about the planned military operation in the northern Syrian city of Raqqah.

He said President Tayyip Erdogan would discuss these issues with President Donald Trump when he visits Washington next week.

"We are keenly aware of the security concerns of our coalition partner Turkey", White said.

Mattis called Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik on Tuesday, the Pentagon said. Canikli told Turkey's A Haber television.

Under Secretary of State Tom Shannon also had a closed meeting with Turkish presidential adviser Ibrahim Kalin Tuesday at the State Department.

-Turkish tension. He said the US wants to work alongside the Turks to battle IS. He noted that the US government's National Counter-Terrorism Center previously labeled the YPG as the PKK's Syrian affiliate, but scrapped that description once the USA began working with them in late-2014.

"We've been conducting military and diplomatic dialogue with the Turks and it was a very, very useful discussion today", Mattis said at a press conference with Danish Defense Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen.