Rubin: Turkey fulfills definition of terror sponsor more than PKK

"NATO member or not, it increasingly seems Turkey fulfills any definition of terror sponsor more than the PKK does," said Rubin.

Former Pentagon official Michael Rubin, now a researcher with the American Enterprise Institute and, testified before the American Religious Freedom Committee and said that the US should remove the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), from US terror lists.

In an interview with North Press, Rubin explained the dimensions of this proposal, the possibility to achieve it, and the impact of US-Turkish relations on the Syrian file.

Rubin told North Press: "What Hamas has done in Gaza confirms they are a terrorist group. What the Islamic State did in Syria and Iraq shows they too were terrorists. What the Autonomous Administration did in Syria proves that the propaganda long put forward by Turkey and long accepted at face value by the U.S. government, and, frankly, myself in the past as well, is flat out wrong."

He went on to explain that what happened in Syria is the biggest piece evidence that those Kurds fighting against extremism are American partners with whom the US shares the same goals, and are not enemies or terrorists.

Rubin went further to claim that Turkey has provided a great deal of false information about the PKK to the US over the years, and added that “almost any intelligence supplied by the Turks is hopelessly polluted. Frankly, the United States should also re-assess Turkey. NATO member or not, it increasingly seems Turkey fulfills any definition of terror sponsor more than the PKK does.”

Rubin also said that US Envoy to Syria James Jeffrey “not only green-lighted ethnic cleansing, he effectively allowed Erdogan to change Turkey's borders.” The former Pentagon official added that Jeffrey was humiliatingly manipulated by Turkey, and that his actions “benefited Russia, Assad, and the Islamic State.”