Islam Times - Turkey-US Spat Escalates: Ankara Renames Washington Embassy Street after Syria Offensive

Turkey-US Spat Escalates: Ankara Renames Washington Embassy Street after Syria Offensive

Islam Times - Turkey has announced plan to change the name of a street in Ankara that houses the US Embassy after Olive Branch Operation as tensions between the two NATO-member states are escalation over Washington's support for Syrian Kurdish militia forces.

"We signed a request to rename Nevzat Tandogan Street, where the US embassy is located, as Olive Branch Street. The initiative will be introduced for consideration at Ankara’s municipal assembly today,” Ankara’s Mayor Mustafa Tuna wrote on his Twitter page.

On January 20, Turkey launched so-called Operation Olive Branch against Kurdish militia forces in Syria's Afrin district after the US announce a plan to work with the Kurdish militias to set up a 30,000-strong border force near Turkish soil, a move that infuriated Ankara.

Ankara views the US-backed Kurdish YPG militias as a terror organization and the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). The latter has been fighting for an autonomous region inside Turkey since 1984.

In November, Turkey renamed the street where the United Arab Emirates embassy is located after Fahreddin Pasha, a long-dead Ottoman military commander in Medina, located in Saudi Arabia . It was a reaction to an Emirati minister’s retweet of a claim that the Turkish president’s “forefathers” pillaged the holy city of Medina.