WASHINGTON – US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will press Turkey to reinin its military operation in northern Syria during a visit to the NATO allynext week, a senior US official said on Friday.

Briefing reporters on Tillerson’s February 11-16 trip to Jordan, Turkey,Lebanon, Egypt and Kuwait, US officials said there would be toughconversations at each stop, notably in Jordan, upset by the US decision torecognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and by the US limiting aid forthe Palestinians.

The United States and Turkey, allies in the North Atlantic TreatyOrganization, are also deeply divided over a Turkish military air andground operation into the Afrin region in northwest Syria targeting theKurdish YPG militia.

US support for the Kurdish-led forces has infuriated Turkey, which viewsgrowing Kurdish power as a security threat along its frontier. Ankara seesthe YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) thathas waged a three-decade-long insurgency in Turkey’s mainly Kurdishsoutheast.

“We are urging them to show restraint in their operations in Afrin and toshow restraint further along the line across the (border) in northernSyria,” a US official told reporters in a conference call. “That’s going tobe a difficult conversation.”

Speaking of US-Turkish relations, he added: “Look it’s difficult. Therhetoric is hot. The Turks are angry, and this is a difficult time to dobusiness but it’s our belief that there are still some very fundamentalunderlying shared interests.” – Agencies