Baladi News
Turkey may not kill the Kurdish fighters in northern Syria and a U.S. withdrawal from the country will not happen without a deal to protect them, White House national security advisor John Bolton told reporters in Jerusalem on Sunday.
Bolton described this stipulation as President Donald Trump's position, responding to numerous questions over Washington's support for its Kurdish partners — its foremost local allies in the anti-Islamic State (IS) fight in Syria — in the wake of the president's surprise announcement on December 19 to pull the roughly 2,000 deployed U.S. troops from the war-torn country.
"We don't think the Turks ought to undertake military action that's not fully coordinated with and agreed to by the United States at a minimum so they don't endanger our troops, but also so that they meet the president's requirement that the Syrian opposition forces that have fought with us are not endangered," Bolton said.
Speaking during a visit to Israel and Turkey intended in part to reassure allies amid criticism over the White House's Syria decision, Bolton added that Trump "wants the ISIS caliphate destroyed." Trump earlier touted complete victory over IS, the fight against whom was the primary reason for U.S. troop presence in Syria and its support for Kurdish militia fighters known as the Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG.
Bolton will travel to Turkey on Monday for talks with Turkish officials about their aims and capabilities in combating IS.
Source: CNBC