Turkey had opened a corridor to the town on Oct. 20 to let Kurdish Peshmerga fighters cross to the front. However, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan repeatedly said it was out of question to provide support to the PYD, adding that the Turkish state considered it a terrorist group, the same way as ISIL.

Harf stressed that, contrary to Turkey, Washington was making a distinction between the PKK and the PYD, as the latter does not figure in the list of terrorist groups.