Iraq News Now

WASHINGTON,— The US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to condemn Donald Trump’s pullback of US troops from Syrian Kurdistan (northern Syria), a formal manifestation of the fierce bipartisan backlash against the president’s controversial policy.

The joint resolution is the first congressional denunciation of Trump’s move, which critics have savaged as essentially providing a green light for Turkish forces to invade northern Syria and attack Kurdish militias.

The House “opposes the decision to end certain United States efforts to prevent Turkish military operations against Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria,” the resolution states.

It calls on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to “immediately cease unilateral military action” in the area and urges continued US humanitarian support in Syrian Kurdish communities.

Shortly before lawmakers voted 354 to 60 to pass the non-binding measure, Trump disparaged the Kurdish allies he abandoned in the face of the Turkish offensive, saying they were “not angels,” along with Republicans at home critical of his abrupt withdrawal.

The Kurdish Democratic Union Party 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 Syrian Democratic Forces 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.

Syria’s Kurds have detained thousands of local and foreign fighters suspected of fighting for Islamic State, as well as thousands of related women and children.

11,000 Kurdish male and female fighters had been killed in five years of war to eliminate the Islamic State “caliphate” that once covered an area the size of Great Britain in Syria and Iraq.

Copyright © 2019, respective author or news agency, Ekurd.net | AFP

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