TURKEY'S President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday that he is determined to destroy “to pieces” the Kurdish forces in Rojava, northern Syria, whether or not his country agrees with the United States on the establishment of a so-called “safe zone.” 

Officials from the US and Turkey have been holding talks on how to address the latter's ambition to crush the Kurdish autonomous zone, which formed during the disastrous Syrian civil war. 

Ankara has a long history of oppressing its own Kurdish minority and views the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) in Syria — which battled Isis and worked with US forces — as terrorists.