Financial Tribune- A lawmaker called the ongoing Turkish military operation against Kurdish militants in the northern Syrian region of Afrin a mistake that should be stopped.

Farhad Tajarri, himself a Kurd, said that “the Kurds in northern Iraq and Syria are victims of terrorism themselves and only a small number of them are linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG),” ICANA reported on Wednesday.

YPG is a US-backed Syrian Kurdish force that fought against the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group in Syria but acts independently from Damascus.

However, Turkey sees YPG as a “terrorist group” that acts as the Syrian offshoot of PKK, which has waged a bloody three-decade insurgency against Turkey.

“We cannot remain silent on the Turkish actions affecting the Kurds since these [measures] can be seen as an act against [all] Kurds,” Tajarri said.

He also condemned the US for arming YGP and said Washington is only looking for another justification to stay in Syria after the defeat of IS there late last year.