Turkey, Pakistan reject US inclusion on child soldier blacklist

Turkey and Pakistan have vigorously rejected their inclusion by the US on a list of countries that recruit child soldiers, with Ankara slamming the accusations as "baseless" and hypocritical".

On Thursday, the US State Department published a report entitled "2021 Trafficking in Persons Report", which accused the two countries and thirteen others, including Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, of committing violations of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act (CSPA).

For Turkey, the charges were directed at its alleged “operational, equipment and financial support” to an armed group in Syria that recruits children.

In a statement on Friday, Ankara's foreign minister accused the report of carrying "unacceptable" and "baseless allegations".  In May 2020, the Turkish-backed SNA issued a ban on soldiers in its ranks aged under 18, but child recruitment still continues, according to a recent UN report .

Ankara's foreign ministry, for its part, accused Washington of displaying hypocrisy and double standards by publishing the report.

Ankara said it ignored American's own support and weapons aid to the Kurdish-majority Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is dominated by the Kurdish militant group known as the People’s Protection Front (YPG).

The UN report mentioned above revealed that the SDF had recruited more than 100 children to its ranks in 2020. The SDF has signed multiple treaties with the UN and a Swiss Humanitarian organisation but is yet to abandon the practice.

US support for the SDF is one among many issues that have strained ties between the NATO allies, which includes Turkey’s planned purchase of a Russian missile defence system and President Biden’s recognition of the Armenian genocide.

Both Turkey and Qatar have designated the YPG a terrorist organisation. Ankara believes the YPG has close links to Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) insurgents, against who it has been embroiled in a decades-long war.

Islamabad's rejection

Pakistan also protested its inclusion on the list of the US report, calling it "unsubstantiated".

In a foreign ministry statement, Islamabad said it did not support "any non-state armed groups; nor any entity recruiting or using child soldiers."

Citing its own efforts fighting such groups, it dismissed the as a “factual error” that depicted a “lack of understanding”.

The foreign ministry said that no state institution was consulted by Washington prior to the report’s publication, and that it had receive no details for the basis of its claims.

Afghan officials and many analysts still accuse Pakistan's intelligence agencies of support for the Taliban.