US pulls troops from northeast Syria

Turkey set for offensive ... fight against DAESH will be damaged: SDF

ISTANBUL, Oct 7, (Agencies): The United States said it was pulling troops from northeast Syria, in a major shift which clears the way for a Turkish military offensive against Kurdish-led forces and hands Turkey responsibility for thousands of Islamic State captives.

A US official said American troops had withdrawn from two observation posts on the border, at Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ain, and had told the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces that the United States would not defend the SDF from an imminent Turkish offensive.

“Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria,” the White House said after US President Donald Trump spoke to Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday.

“The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial “Caliphate”, will no longer be in the immediate area,” it added in a statement.

Turkey has long argued for the establishment of a 20-mile (32 kms) “safe zone” along the border, under Turkish control, driving back the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia – which is the dominant force in the SDF alliance and which Ankara considers a terrorist organisation and a threat to its national security.

The United States helped the YPG defeat Islamic State militants in Syria, and had been seeking a joint ‘security mechanism’ with Turkey along the border to meet Turkey’s security needs without threatening the SDF.

The SDF accused Washington on Monday of reneging on an ally which spearheaded the fight against Islamic State in Syria, and warned that it would have a “great negative” impact on the war against the jihadists.

“The American forces did not fulfill their commitments and withdrew their forces from the border areas with Turkey, and Turkey is now preparing for an invasion operation of northern and eastern Syria,” it said in a statement.

SDF official Mustafa Bali said US forces were “leaving the areas to turn into a war zone”.

Proposed

The White House statement appeared to hand over to Turkey responsibility for captured Islamic State jihadists who are currently held in SDF facilities to the south of Turkey’s initially proposed safe zone.

“Turkey will now be responsible for all ISIS fighters in the area captured over the past two years,” it said.

The statement also made pointed reference to Washington’s European allies, saying many of the captured IS fighters came from those countries, which had resisted US calls to take them back.

“The United States will not hold them for what could be many years and great cost to the United States taxpayer,” the White House said.

In the first Turkish comment following the statement, Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Turkey’s “safe zone” plan was within the framework of Syria’s territorial integrity.

“The safe zone has two aims: to secure our borders by clearing away terrorist elements and to achieve the return of refugees in a safe way,” Kalin wrote on Twitter.

“Turkey is powerful and determined,” he added.

Turkey says it wants to settle up to 2 million Syrian refugees in the zone. It currently hosts 3.6 million Syrians sheltering from the more than eightyear-old conflict in their homeland.

After the statements, Turkey’s lira was trading weaker at 5.7150 against the US dollar, compared with a close of 5.70 on Friday.

After the Erdogan-Trump phone call, the Turkish presidency said the two leaders had agreed to meet in Washington next month.

It said that during the call Erdogan had expressed his frustration with the failure of US military and security officials to implement the agreement between the two countries.

The NATO allies agreed in August to establish a zone in northeast Syria along the border with Turkey.

Warned

Turkey says the United States moved too slowly to set up the zone. It has repeatedly warned of launching an offensive on its own into northeast Syria.

Ties between the allies have also been pressured over Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 defence missiles and the trial of local US consulate employees in Turkey.

Trump’s sudden decision to pull back US troops from northern Syria drew quick criticism Monday from some of his closest allies in Congress.

The announcement threw the military situation in Syria into fresh chaos and injected deeper uncertainty into US relations with European allies. Republican Sen Lindsey Graham called it “a disaster.”

Trump defended the move in a series of tweets, acknowledging that “the Kurds fought with us,” but adding that they “were paid massive amounts of money and equipment to do so.”

“I held off this fight for almost 3 years, but it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home,” he wrote, adding, in all capital letters, that “We will fight where it is to our benefit, and only fight to win.”

US troops “will not support or be involved in the operation” and “will no longer be in the immediate area,” in northern Syria, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in an unusual late-Sunday statement that was silent on the fate of the Kurds.