Veep talks Turkey
Overture to Kurds in visit to U.S. troops in Iraq
Vice President Mike Pence made a surprise visit to Iraq on Saturday to visit American troops spending the holidays overseas — and sought to patch up ties with Kurdish allies who were practically abandoned by President Trump last month.
Pence insisted nothing has changed with the U.S. alliance with the Kurds, even though Trump gave their archenemy Turkey a green light to seize a huge swath of their territory in Syria.
“The strong bonds forged in the fires of war between the people of the United States and the Kurdish people across this region … [are] unchanging,” Pence told leaders in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Erbil.
The visit was also meant to reassure the many Americans who have long supported the region’s Kurds, particularly evangelical Christians, that the Trump administration remained committed to them. The Kurds were the main U.S. allies in the fight against the Islamic State radicals.
Pence also wants to show that he is focused on foreign policy as Trump is preoccupied with the impeachment drama.
The Kurdish alliance was rocked last month when Turkey took advantage of Trump’s acquiescence to invade and seize much of the Kurdish region of Syria along the two nations’ border.
Syria’s Kurds, seeking protection from their No. 1 enemy, Turkey, countered by inviting Syrian government and Russian forces into parts of northeastern Syria where they had not set foot in years. That was a major geopolitical setback for the U.S., even though the mass bloodshed that some predicted did not materialize.
Still, Pence lauded the deal as a historic victory for Trump.
Kurdish leaders in their autonomous region of Iraq welcomed Pence warmly despite what many Kurds view as a historic betrayal.
A senior Syrian Kurdish official was critical Saturday of Washington’s lack of response to Turkish violations of a ceasefire with Kurdish fighters.
Limiting the U.S. partnership to military cooperation over a limited area with the Syrian Kurdish fighters, “while condoning the killing of civilians, is not a very honest relationship and cooperation,” the official, Ilham Ahmed, said.
Pence, who was accompanied by Second Lady Karen Pence, flew in on a C-17 cargo plane for security reasons and did not travel to the Iraqi capital Baghdad, where anti-government protests have killed hundreds in recent days.
The couple greeted American service members ahead of Thanksgiving, serving a turkey dinner to hundreds of troops.
“While you come from the rest of us, you’re the best of us,” Pence told service members in a dusty hangar at Al-Asad, Iraq.
Pence said the Trump administration is working to secure another pay increase for the armed services and claimed the ongoing impeachment inquiry in Washington was slowing the way.
“Partisan politics and endless investigations have slowed things down in D.C.,” Pence said.