Turkish officials are expressing their discontent with a new authorization by the Trump Administration of US arms to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

Donald Trump approved the provision of $393 million in arms, including heavy weapons and armored vehicles on December 12 to the SDF. The force, created in autumn 2015 to fight the Islamic State, is led by the Kurdish military YPG.

Ankara considers the YPG and its political umbrella, the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), to be part of the Turkish Kurdish insurgency PKK.

The Turkish protests were put out on Saturday through newspapers close to the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They claimed that on November 24, Trump said after a phone call with Erdoğan that he was “openly instructing his generals to no longer give weapons to the YPG”.

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu asserted, “He openly said that this absurdity should have ended much earlier.”

The Turkish reports imply that, to get around objections to provision of the weapons to the YPG or even the SDF, the Trump order said the arms are going to the “Vetted Syrian Opposition”.

The US has cut off assistance to Syrian rebels unless they commit to fight only ISIS, which has now been pushed out of almost all positions in Syria, and refrain from combat with pro-Assad forces.