US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he would lift sanctions on Turkey after the NATO ally agreed to permanently stop fighting Kurdish forces in Syria and he defended his decision to withdraw US troops.
“We’re getting out,” Trump said at the White House, asserting that tens of thousands of Kurdish lives were saved as a result of his actions.
“Let someone else fight over this long, blood-stained sand,” he said.
Photo: Reuters
Trump, who campaigned on a promise to cease US involvement in “endless wars,” took a victory lap as he lopped the US presence inside Syria in less than a year from about 2,000 troops to a contingency force in southern Syria of 200 to 300.
US lawmakers on both sides of the aisle chastised Trump for turning on the Syrian Kurds, whose fighters battled side by side with US troops to beat back the Islamic State group. They also questioned whether the move has opened up the region to a resurgence of the extremist group.
“I am worried that a full withdrawal will create space for ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] to regroup, grow and gain more strength,” said US Representative Michael McCaul, the lead Republican on the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs. “We learned from [former US] president [Barack] Obama’s reckless retreat from Iraq that power vacuums are exploited by America’s worst enemies. We do not want to repeat the same mistake. We must learn from history.”
Trump said that if Turkey does not honor its pledge for a permanent ceasefire, he would not hesitate to reimpose sanctions. Earlier this month, he halted negotiations on a US$100 billion trade deal with Turkey, raised steel tariffs back up to 50 percent and imposed sanctions on three senior Turkish officials, and Turkey’s defense and energy ministries.
“The job of our military is not to police the world,” Trump said.
“Other nations must step up and do their fair share. Today’s breakthrough is a critical step in that direction,” he said.
Trump earlier this month ordered the bulk of the approximately 1,000 US troops in Syria to withdraw after Turkish President Recep Tayipp Erdogan told him a phone call that Turkish forces were set to invade northeastern Syria.
The pullout was seen as an abandonment of Kurdish fighters, who have incurred thousands of casualties as they fought with US forces against Islamic State militants.
Trump’s critics say he gave up US influence in the region and signaled to future allies that the US is no longer a reliable partner. More than 176,000 people have been displaced by the Turkish offensive and about 500 Islamic State fighters gained freedom during the conflict.
“There were a few that got out, a small number relatively speaking,” Trump said. “They’ve been largely recaptured.”
Turkey is taking control of areas of Syria that it captured in its invasion. Russian and Syrian forces are now overseeing the rest of the border region, leaving the US with little influence in the region.
Trump said he would “bring our soldiers home” from Syria, but then recalibrated and his administration plans to shift more than 700 to western Iraq.
However, Iraqi Minister of Defense Najah al-Shammari said that the US troops would leave the country within four weeks.
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