Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, May 2017
Donald Trump has added to the confusion over US policy in Syria with a pair of rambling tweets.
Trump had been silent for several days about his December 19 order for withdrawal of all 2,000 US troops, who have been supporting a Kurdish-led force in pushing back the Islamic State in northern and eastern Syria.
Meanwhile, his Administration fell into division and confrontation over the proposed departure. National Security Advisor John Bolton signalled the pushback of US agencies, setting conditions for the withdrawal that could apply for months or even years. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan refused to meet Bolton in Ankara, amid Turkish anger over US warnings not to attack Syrian Kurdish factions.
EA on TRT World: Trump Administration in Confusion Over Syria
Syria Daily, Jan 13: Turkey Maneuvers on Border, Amid Uncertainty Over US Withdrawal and Islamist Advance
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, touring the Middle East, then issued vague and somewhat contradictory statements. He said that the withdrawal would be completed but that the US would continue with the fight against ISIS and would remove any Iranian influence in Syria.
Trump turned to Twitter on Sunday afternoon. He began by maintaining the tension in US policy, saying withdrawal will begin but appearing to back Bolton’s condition that the Islamic State has to be vanquished — a shift from Trump’s insistence in December, fed by Erdoğan, that ISIS has been “completely defeated”. He spoke of a permanent US presence, apparently in a base in western Iraq.
The he issued a warning to Ankara:
Starting the long overdue pullout from Syria while hitting the little remaining ISIS territorial caliphate hard, and from many directions. Will attack again from existing nearby base if it reforms. Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds. Create 20 mile safe zone….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 13, 2019
Trump did not explain if the “safe zone”, presumably in Kurdish areas of northeast Syria, will be enforced — given the departure of US troops — with American airpower. Instead, he said he did “not want the Kurds to provoke Turkey”, and then appeared to condemn his own policy of ensuring the defeat of the Islamic State: “Russia, Iran and Syria have been the biggest beneficiaries”.
Trump unsettled his officials earlier this week by saying that the Iranians “can do whatever they want” in Syria.
The Pentagon and Bolton’s National Security Council have seen the US presence as essential to limit the position of the Islamic Republic, an essential ally of the Assad regime, in Syria.
US-Turkish Talks This Week
Since its creation in autumn 2015, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have taken control of about 27% of Syria. The Islamic State has been reduced to a pocket on the Iraqi border.
But Turkey considers the Kurdish militia YPG, the leading group in the SDF, as part of the Turkish Kurdish insurgency PKK.
The Erdoğan Government, which has been trying to split Trump from officials such as Bolton, did not respond to the tweets. Instead, Turkish officials presented the line that “Turkey and the United States will intensify talks this week” and rewrote last week’s friction with Bolton as “comprehensive negotiations…that sought coordination of the U.S. withdrawal so that no vacuums would be created to the advantage of the terror groups”.
Turkish media cited “one of the US priorities was to urge Turkey to give assurances on the protection of the YPG after the withdrawal”, while emphasizing Ankara’s position “that it will never seek any other country’s consent in taking own measures against the terrorist presence just across its borders.
The outlets quoted Pompeo’s holding statement from the UAE on Saturday:
We are confident we can achieve an outcome that achieves both of those – that protects the Turks from legitimate terror threats, and prevents any substantial risk to the folks who don’t present terror risks to Turkey.
Pompeo, who spoke with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on Saturday, said US envoy to Syria James Jeffrey will lead the American side in this week’s discussions.
Turkey is demanding that the US gather all weapons which it has given to the YPG and to ensure that US bases are not handed over to the Kurdish militia but to Syrian Arab or Turkish forces.
Syria’s Yazidis will suffer the consequences of US withdrawal: activist
Syria’s Yazidi and other minority groups could become a target for Turkish-backed militias like elements of the Free Syrian Army, US-based human rights group Yazda has warned.
Yazda co-founder and former US army translator Hadi Pir said on Friday [December 28] that extremists are likely to take advantage of the imminent withdrawal of American forces from Syria and attack persecuted minorities like the Yazidis.
“They persecute Yazidis and they change their temples to mosques and force them to convert to Islam,” Mr Pir said about the Turkish backed brigades of the FSA. […] In some northern towns under control of Turkish-backed groups in the Free Syrian Army, residents have spoken out against forced conversions to Islam, The Independent recently reported. The names of Yazidi villages changed to Arabic names, and residents branded as infidels.
https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/syria-s-yazidis-will-suffer-the-consequences-of-us-withdrawal-activist-1.807472 12/29/2018
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Christians concerned about religious freedom if Turkey enters Syria
Growing numbers of Christians in North America and Europe are joining Christians in Syria’s northeast in expressing concern for the future of religious minorities and Kurds in that region should the U.S. give Turkey the “green light” to take over the fight against Islamic State. […]
Meanwhile, Syriac Christian organizations in Syria, the U.S. and Europe have called for a no-fly zone over northern Syria to stop any possible Turkish attack, fearing further trouble for Christians who were endangered by Turkey’s takeover of Afrin early last year.
“We urgently need protection from Turkey’s threats to invade and “cleanse” our territory from Christianity, religious freedom, and democracy,” read the statement published Jan. 3 by the Syriac National Council of Syria, the American Syriac Union, and the European Syriac Union. The groups include Catholic and Orthodox Christians.
http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2019/christians-concerned-about-religious-freedom-if-turkey-enters-syria.cfm 1/8/2019
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The departure of American forces from Syria worries some ancient faiths
About a month ago, the diverse coalition of people who campaign for the welfare of ancient religious communities in the Middle East experienced a moment of success when Donald Trump signed legislation aiming to help groups in Iraq and Syria that had been targeted for genocide by Islamic State (IS). The president declared that he was signing the bill because “IS has committed horrifying atrocities against religious and ethnic minorities in Syria and Iraq, including Christians, Yazidis, Shia and other groups.”
This was a high point in a protracted lobbying effort by a coalition that included the energetic, upwardly-mobile diaspora of Middle Eastern Christians; conservative American Christians who feel their co-religionists are under threat from fundamentalist Islam in many parts of the world; and people who advocate the general principle of religious freedom, regardless of which groups are being persecuted and who the persecutors are. The Iraq and Syria Genocide Emergency Relief and Accountability Act, which Mr Trump signed, was introduced by Chris Smith, a Republican congressman. He has worked to enforce and broaden the legislation that binds American governments to monitor and promote liberty of belief in all countries.
But the euphoria did not last long. Among supporters of the region’s religious minorities, Mr Trump’s announcement on December 19th that American troops would be withdrawn from Syria drew immediate cries of alarm. Father Emmanuel Youkhana, a priest of the Assyrian Church of the East, said that for Christians in the area an abrupt American pullout could “open up the gates of hell” and reverse any benefit from the new American law. The Free Yazidi Foundation, based in the Netherlands, also voiced fears that minorities could again find themselves highly vulnerable.
https://www.economist.com/erasmus/2019/01/13/a-pivotal-time-for-embattled-religious-minorities-in-the-middle-east 1/13/2019