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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS