Tag: Trump foreign policy

Turkey’s Erdogan ‘threw Trump’s Syria letter in bin’

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan put US President Donald Trump’s letter “in the bin”, the BBC has been told.

In the letter dated 9 October, and sent after US troops were pulled out of Syria, Mr Trump told Mr Erdogan: “Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool!”

President Trump was urging Turkey not to launch a military offensive against Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria, but Mr Erdogan ignored this request.

US Vice President Mike Pence is now in Ankara to push for a ceasefire.

View the complete October 17 article on the BBC News website here.

Erdogan says Turkey will ‘never declare a ceasefire’

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dismissed US calls for a ceasefire in northern Syria and said that he’s not worried about American-imposed sanctions, or the advancement of Russian-backed Syrian forces toward the Turkish border.

Speaking to journalists traveling on his presidential plane following a visit to Azerbaijan Tuesday, Erdogan said a ceasefire was off the table. “Declare a ceasefire, they say. We will never declare a ceasefire,” Erdogan said. “We do not sit at the table with terrorist organizations.”

Erdogan’s comments come as Russian-backed Syrian regime troops on Tuesday gained control of the town of Manbij and surrounding areas, until recently an active US military outpost.

View the complete October 16 article by Helen Regan and Taylor Barnes on the CNN website here.

Rare, and unapologetic, bipartisan congressional rebuke for Trump on Syria

Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Lindsey Graham, Liz Cheney all part with president

“I think Lindsey should focus on Judiciary,” President Donald Trump said Wednesday when asked about criticism from South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of his decision to effectively side with Turkey over the Kurdish population of Syria.

Graham, who is often an ally of the president, was comparing Trump’s move to pull back U.S. forces supporting the Kurds to the Obama administration policy of withdrawal from Iraq. The senator is chairman of both the Judiciary Committee and the Appropriations subcommittee responsible for funding the State Department.

“The people of South Carolina don’t want us to get into a war with Turkey — a NATO member — or with Syria. Let them fight their own wars. They’ve been fighting for 1,000 years,” Trump said during a joint news conference with Italian President Sergio Mattarella. “Let them fight their own wars. The people of South Carolina want to see those troops come home, and I won an election based on that. And that’s the way it is, whether it’s good or bad. That’s the way it is.”

View the complete October 16 article by Niels Lesniewski and John T. Bennet on The Roll Call website here.

Trump’s sanctions won’t bite a vulnerable Turkish economy

FRANKFURT, Germany — The sanctions the U.S. announced against Turkey this week over its offensive in Syria fall well short of doing serious damage to an economy still healing from a recession and currency collapse.

President Donald Trump could take far tougher action that would deter foreign investment and credit that Turkey badly needs. But doing so could backfire in a number of ways, and it’s not clear he really wants to.

Trump has said he could “destroy and obliterate” the economy of Turkey and called on the country to rein in its Syria offensive.

View the complete October 15 article by David McHugh from the Associated Press on The Star Tribune website here.

House passes resolution rebuking Trump over Syria pullout

The Hill logoThe House on Wednesday approved a resolution formally rebuking President Trump over his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria.

The measure passed in a 354-60 vote, with four lawmakers voting present. All 60 votes against the resolution came from Republicans, with the present votes coming from three GOP lawmakers and Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.). The top three House Republicans supported the motion in a rare split from the president.

The resolution — which was sponsored by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and the panel’s top Republican, Rep. Michael McCaul (Texas) — “opposes the decision to end certain United States efforts to prevent Turkish military operations against Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria.”

View the complete October 16 article by Rebecca Kheel on The Hill website here.

Trump says Turkish offensive has ‘nothing to do with us’

The Hill logoPresident Trump said Wednesday that Turkey’s offensive against U.S.-allied Kurdish forces in northern Syria has “has nothing to do with us,” defending his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the region amid criticism.

“It’s not our land,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office during a meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella.

“If Turkey goes into Syria that’s between Turkey and Syria,” he added. “That’s not between Turkey and the United States, like a lot of stupid people would like you to believe.”

View the complete October 16 article by Morgan Chalfant and Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Trump Says Border Wall More Important Than Defending Kurdish Allies

As Turkey’s military actions intensify in northern Syria, Trump is defending his decision to abandon Kurdish allies by claiming he wants to focus his attention on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Some people want the United States to protect the 7,000 mile away Border of Syria, presided over by Bashar al-Assad, our enemy,” Trump wrote on Monday. “At the same time, Syria and whoever they chose to help, wants naturally to protect the Kurds. I would much rather focus on our Southern Border which abuts and is part of the United States of America. And by the way, numbers are way down and the WALL is being built!”

After an Oct. 6 phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump announced U.S. troops would withdraw from northern Syria, giving tacit permission for Turkey to begin military action in the area. Trump abandoned Kurdish allies in the region who had been pivotal to America’s fight against ISIS, knowing Turkey would attack the Kurds.

View the complete October 14 article by Dan Desai Martin on the National Memo website here.

‘Essentially Hostages’: US Nuclear Weapons At Turkish Airbase

When President Donald Trump pulled American troops out of northern Syria, virtually giving Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the green light to attack the region’s Kurds, he likely didn’t anticipate a key factor that might get caught in the crossfire: control of U.S. nuclear weapons.

Erdogan’s forces have been raining down terror on the Kurds, long considered to be key U.S. allies in the fight against ISIS, exactly the horrifying scenario that critics of Trump’s move predicted. Turkey even fired on an outpost of U.S. special operation forces. It’s a fraught scenario for the United States to find itself in, made all the more dangerous by the fact that Turkey, itself a NATO ally, is home to an estimated 50 American nuclear weapons. The New York Times reported:

And over the weekend, State and Energy Department officials were quietly reviewing plans for evacuating roughly 50 tactical nuclear weapons that the United States had long stored, under American control, at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, about 250 miles from the Syrian border, according to two American officials.

Those weapons, one senior official said, were now essentially Erdogan’s hostages. To fly them out of Incirlik would be to mark the de facto end of the Turkish-American alliance. To keep them there, though, is to perpetuate a nuclear vulnerability that should have been eliminated years ago.

View the complete October 14 article by Cody Fenwick from AlterNet on the National Memo website here.

Trump’s lose-lose game in Syria

Washington Post logoWith the state of play in Syria rapidly shifting, President Trump seems to have arrived at the worst of all worlds. Trump’s name is already mud among the Syrian Kurdish fighters his administration abandoned when it essentially gave Turkey the green light for an invasion last week. These incursions into northeastern Syria, warned Trump’s own Defense Department on Monday, “undermined” the fight against the Islamic State and threatened to engulf clusters of U.S. troops that still remain. And whatever favor Trump intended to curry with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan likely soured after he subsequently backed bipartisan congressional sanctions against Turkey for carrying out an anti-Kurdish offensive that was only possible with the American president’s acquiescence.

“Faced with a crisis of its own making, a flailing superpower has turned to economic sanctions to pretend it is still relevant,” the Economist dryly observed. Amid the turmoil, Trump’s argument may be that he does not want to be relevant, at least in the hot spot that is war-ravaged Syria. He routinely blames the Obama administration, from which he inherited America’s checkered legacy of involvement in the Syrian war, including its firm alliance with the main faction of Syrian Kurds. Better, Trump tweeted, to not have to deal with it at all. And to that end, he could be getting his wish.

As part of a deal with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian Democratic Forces — or SDF, the Syrian Kurdish-led faction backed by the United States but seen by Turkey as the analogue of an outlawed Kurdish separatist group within its own borders — invited in regime forces to help thwart Turkey and its militant proxies.

View the complete October 15 article by Ishaan Tharoor on The Wahsington Post website here.

Trump calls on Turkey to broker ceasefire

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Monday called on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to negotiate a ceasefire with Kurdish forces amid violence in the region precipitated by a U.S. withdrawal from northern Syria.

Vice President Pence told reporters outside the White House that Trump “pressed [Erdoğan] very strongly” in a phone call earlier in the day to broker a ceasefire immediately.

Pence will lead a delegation to Turkey in the coming days to help broker a settlement between Ankara and Kurdish forces, he added.

View the complete October 14 article by Brett Samuels and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.