MOSCOW. Oct 16 (Interfax) - Syrian Kurds are unlikely to hand weapons possibly supplied to them to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), as they need these weapons themselves to combat Islamic State, says Nodar Mosaki of the Near and Middle East Studies Center under the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Oriental Studies.
"It is unlikely that weapons handed to Syrian Kurds may be transferred directly to the PKK, that is, transported through the territories of Turkey and Iraq, where the PKK is actually based," Mosaki told Interfax when asked how substantiated Ankara's concerns are about the possibility that weapons could be supplied to Syrian Kurds and then fall into PKK hands.
"This can be explained by the fact that it's Syrian Kurds who are engaged in a full-scale war who basically need these weapons, while the PKK is conducting chiefly landmine operations against the Turkish army," he said.
"The weapons received by Syrian Kurds enable the PKK armed groups to keep the weapons they possess without transferring them to Syria," Mosaki said.
"That is, in any case, the PKK directly benefits from support that foreign states are giving to the organization affiliated with it," he added.
A number of media outlets had reported earlier that the Russian and U.S. ambassadors to Turkey had been summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry to be warned that Turkey would not tolerate supplies of weapons to Syrian Kurds.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he had no information that the Russian ambassador in Ankara had been summoned over the matter.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov categorically denied that Russia was shipping weapons to Syrian Kurds.