Trump: Turkey, Syrian Kurds have to ‘figure the situation out’ after U.S. pullback
WASHINGTON,— U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday justified his decision to withdraw US troops from Turkey’s border with Syria, saying the region would have to “figure the situation out” and that America needed to get out of “ridiculous Endless Wars.”
The US withdrawal from key positions along Syria’s Kurdish northern border, announced late Sunday, marks a major policy shift and effectively abandons the Kurds, who were Washington’s main ally in the years-old battle against the so-called Islamic State group.
“Turkey, Europe, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia and the Kurds will now have to figure the situation out, and what they want to do with the captured ISIS fighters in their ‘neighborhood.'” Trump tweeted.
“It is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home. We will fight where it is to our benefit, and only fight to win.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that his army was ready to launch operations against Kurdish militants in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) at any moment following the US announcement that it would not stand in the way.
The United States views the Kurdish YPG as a close ally in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group.
The Kurdish PYD and its powerful military wing YPG/YPJ, considered the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria and U.S. has provided them with arms. The YPG, which is the backbone of the SDF forces, has seized swathes of Syria from Islamic State.
The Kurdish forces expelled the Islamic State from its last patch of territory in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz in March 2019.
The Kurdish-dominated group said that the US pullback threatened to create a security vacuum that would “reverse the successful effort to defeat ISIS”.
It highlighted that 11,000 Kurdish fighters had been killed in five years of war to eliminate a “caliphate” that once covered an area the size of Great Britain in Syria and Iraq.
The Kurds also warned that the US withdrawal and imminent Turkish attack risked leading to the “return of leaders of ISIS who are hidden in the desert” and other areas.
The Kurds have consistently warned that they would be unable to keep captured IS fighters behind bars if they had to dedicate the bulk of their forces to fighting back a Turkish offensive.
The Kurdish SDF said in its statement that IS cells would break out detained jihadists from Kurdish prisons and take over camps where their relatives are held, “which is a threat to local and international security.”
Turkey fears the creation of a Kurdish autonomous region or Kurdish state in Syrian Kurdistan could encourage separatism amongst its own Kurds, according to analysts.
Syria’s Kurds have established a semi-autonomous region in northeastern Syria during the country’s eight-year war.
In 2013, the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party PYD — the political branch of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) — has established three autonomous Cantons of Jazeera, Kobani and Afrin and a Kurdish government across Syrian Kurdistan in 2013. On March 17, 2016, Kurdish and Arab authorities announced the creation of a “federal region” made up of those semi-autonomous regions in Syrian Kurdistan.
Copyright © 2019, respective author or news agency, Ekurd.net | AFP
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