United States President-elect Donald Trump has described the toppling of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad as an “unfriendly takeover” by Turkiye, but had much praise for his Turkish counterpart Erdogan.
Trump made the remarks – in apparent praise of Ankara – during a wide-ranging news conference on Monday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. His comments offered a window into his foreign and domestic policy weeks before he is to re-enter the White House on January 20.
“I think Turkey is very smart… Turkey did an unfriendly takeover without a lot of lives being lost. I can say that Assad was a butcher, what he did to children,” Trump said, referring to the December 8 ousting of the longtime Syrian leader.
“Turkey is a major force, by the way, and Erdogan is somebody I got along with great,” Trump said. “But he has a major military force. And his has not been worn out with war… He’s built a very strong, powerful army.”
He added, referring to THS ““Those people that went in are controlled by Turkey,” he said during the event, his first press conference since winning the presidential election in November. “And that’s okay, that’s another way to fight.”
Al-Assad’s forced departure followed a surprise offensive across the country by rebel groups, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had long opposed al-Assad’s rule and supported not only the Syrian National Army (SNA) opposition group, based in northwestern Syria, but also Turkey was also instrumental to preserving the tenuous toehold of HTS in the Northern portion of the border province Idlib.
Trump had previously weighed in on the conflict, saying it is “not our fight”.
His comments are the first that specifically address Erdogan, with whom he had a turbulent but at the end amicable relationship.
Erdogan hopes to convince Trump to pull American troops out of North Eastern Syria, where there is a 2mn strong Kurdish population, so that the Turkish Army can mop up the military wing of the regional umbrella organization Syrian Democracy Forces. Turkey accuses SDF of harboring many PKK terrorists. It is unclear whether Trump will fully inherit Biden’s Turkey agenda, but another area of fruitful cooperation could be Turkey turning over the control of Russian made S-400s to NATO officers in return for being readmitted to the F-35 jet fighter program.
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