Trump leaves Turkey, Syria ‘to argue it out’
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he did not mind Russia helping Syria in a conflict with NATO ally Turkey and rejected criticism of his withdrawal of US troops from Syria that exposed Kurdish allies, calling it “strategically brilliant.”
In a day of fast-moving events, Trump endured harsh criticism for the withdrawal and lashed out at US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, calling her a “third-rate” politician during a tense White House meeting after which she accused him of having a “meltdown.”
Trump’s decision to withdraw US forces before a Turkish offensive into northern Syria last week has shattered the relative calm there and he has been accused of abandoning Kurdish militia who helped the United States fight Islamic State militants in the region.
The hasty troop exit has created a land rush between Turkey and Russia — now the undisputed foreign powers in the area — to partition the formerly US-protected Kurdish area. It has allowed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to redeploy his forces to an area that had been beyond his control for years in the more than eight-year Syrian war.
Syrian troops accompanied by Russian forces entered the city of Kobani, a strategically important border city and a potential flashpoint for a wider conflict, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian war, reported.
Speaking to reporters as he met Italian President Sergio Mattarella and then at a joint news conference, Trump said the Kurds were “not angels” and that it might be necessary for Russian-backed Syria and Turkey to “fight it out.”
“Our soldiers are not in harm’s way — as they shouldn’t be, as two countries fight over land that has nothing to do with us,” Trump said during Oval Office talks with Mattarella where he sounded as if he were washing his hands of the conflict.