WASHINGTON — In a major shift in United States military policy in Syria, the White House said Sunday that President Trump had his backing for a Turkish military operation to sweep out U.S.-backed Kurdish forces near the border in Syria .
Turkey views the Kurdish forces as a terrorist insurgency and has long sought to end US support for the group. But Kurdish fighters, who are part of the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, have been the United States' most reliable partner in the fight against Islamic State in a strategic corner of northern Syria.
[Related: Why Turkey is figthing the Kurds in Syria, explained.]
Now, Mr. Trump's decision contradicts recommendations from top Pentagon and State Department officials who have sought to maintain a small troop presence in northeastern Syria to continue operations against the Islamic State, or ISIS, and act as a critical counterweight. to Iran and Russia.
Administration officials said Mr. Trump spoke directly with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey about the issue on Sunday. And the officials said the 100 to 150 United States military personnel deployed in that area would be withdrawn before any Turkish operation, but that they would not be fully withdrawn from Syria.
On Monday, witnesses in Syria saw United States forces withdrawing from two positions in northeastern Syria: observation posts in Tel Abyad and Ain Eissa.
“Turkey will soon move forward with its long-planned operation in northern Syria,” the White House said in a statement issued just before 11 p.m. in Washington. “The United States Armed Forces will not support or engage in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated ISIS's territorial 'Caliphate,' will no longer be in the immediate area.”
It was unclear how extensive the Turkish operation would be or whether Turkish forces would clash with the American-backed Kurds, a development that could jeopardize much of the counterterrorism gains made by the U.S. military in the fight against ISIS.
Last December, Mr. Trump called for a full U.S. withdrawal from Syria, but eventually reversed course after backlash from the Pentagon, diplomatic and intelligence officials, as well as key allies in Europe and the Middle East.
Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkey Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of “Erdogan's Empire: Turkey and Middle East Politics“, he said in a telephone interview that a Turkish invasion that is not contested by the United States would allow Turkey to cut another strip of Kurdish-controlled territory in Syria. That would give Mr. Erdogan a ready place to send hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and once again demonstrate his influence over Mr. Trump on Syria policy.
“It's a pretty significant development,” Mr. Cagaptay said.
Many Syria experts criticized the White House's decision and warned that the US abandonment of its Kurdish allies could widen the eight-year Syrian conflict and push the Kurds to ally with the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad to fight the much larger and more technologically advanced Turkish army.
[Follow our live briefing from Oct. 14 as the Syrian Army raced northwest to help battle Turkish-led forces.]
“Allowing Turkey to move into northern Syria is one of the most destabilizing moves we can make in the Middle East,” Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Arizona and a former Marine who served in the Iraq war, said on Twitter the night of Sunday. “The Kurds will never trust America again. They will seek new alliances or independence to protect themselves.”
The White House announcement came as a shock to the SDF, Kurdish officials said Monday. In a statement, the SDF said it had fulfilled its obligations in efforts to reduce tensions with the Turks, but that the United States had not.
The statement warned that a Turkish invasion could jeopardize the progress made in consolidating security in the wake of the battle against Islamic State. He also called on Kurdish forces to “defend our homeland from Turkish aggression.”
Mr Erdogan has called for a “safe zone” for his nation that would be 20 miles deep and 300 miles along the Turkish-Syrian border east of the Euphrates. This area, he said, would be reserved for the return of at least one million Syrian refugees now in Turkey. Mr Erdogan has threatened to send a wave of Syrian migrants to Europe if the international community does not support the initiative to send them back to Syria.
Since early August, the U.S. and Turkish militaries have been cooperating on a series of confidence-building measures — including joint reconnaissance flights and ground patrols — along a 75-mile strip of this 300-mile border region.
American-backed Kurdish forces have retreated several miles and destroyed fortifications in that area.
The pace of these operations was not fast enough for Mr. Erdogan, and last week he began to show that he was planning to launch an invasion across the border. He did the same thing over the summer, sparking a flurry of American diplomatic activity boosted by military confidence-building measures.
Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and General Mark Milley, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both called their Turkish counterparts last week to try to ease tensions. But unresolved threats from Turkey apparently led to Mr Trump's decision on Sunday.
U.S. officials contacted late Sunday did not say how far from the Turkish border U.S. troops would be redeployed or whether it marked the start of a larger overall withdrawal of the 1,000 U.S. troops now conducting and supporting counterterrorism operations in northeastern Syria. These troops rely on their cooperation with the SDF which has a total of 60,000 fighters, including both Kurdish and Arab militias.
One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a fluid military situation, said US forces were withdrawing from northeastern Syria to “get out of the way.”
Officials described a military and political tension as the US military is torn between two important allies in Syria's civil war. Turkey is an important NATO ally, but the Kurdish SDF forces have been partners in the fight against ISIS.
“We are not going to support the Turks and we are not going to support the SDF,” the official said. “If they go to war, we'll be out of it.”
There was serious tension over Syria within the government as well.
In late December 2018, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned over Mr Trump's surprise order for the full withdrawal of 2,000 US troops from Syria. Two days later, Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy for the coalition to defeat ISIS, also resigned. In the months that followed, American officials worked quietly behind the scenes to ensure that some level of troops remained in northeastern Syria.
As recently as the week of the UN General Assembly summit in late September, senior US officials were saying there was consensus across the US government, including Mr Trump, to ensure the well-being of Kurdish forces and prevent persistent of Turkey's desire to attack these forces.
But around the same time, Turkish officials said privately that they saw things very differently: They said they sensed a stark division between Mr. Trump and other American officials — mainly generals at the United States Central Command, which oversees troops in the Middle East . While it was clear the generals wanted to keep Turkey out of the safe zone and keep US troops there, Mr Trump clearly wanted the troops out, they said, and in the end he may have his way.
Mr Erdogan had traveled to New York to discuss Syria and the Kurds with Mr Trump in a one-on-one meeting. He attended a group dinner hosted by Mr. Trump, but the two did not have a formal meeting there. Mr Trump told an event that Mr Erdogan had “become my friend”. The phone call between the two on Sunday may have been arranged as a substitute for the meeting that never took place.
“This appears to be another reckless decision made without discussion or consultation after a call with a foreign leader,” Mr. McGurk said after hearing Mr. Trump's decision on Sunday. “The statement from the White House has nothing to do with the events on the ground. If implemented, it will significantly increase the risk to our personnel, as well as accelerate the resurgence of ISIS.”
Turkish officials pointed to Mr. Trump favorable exchanges with Mr Erdogan at the G20 summit in Japan in June in another sign of a strong relationship between the two leaders. That bilateral meeting was more about a different security flashpoint between the United States and Turkey — Turkey's purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system. But Mr. Trump has largely sidelined that issue.
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The White House's statement on Sunday came as the Islamic State group is amassing new strength, waging insurgent attacks in Iraq and Syria, arming its financial networks and targeting recruits at a tent camp run by allies, US military, counterterrorism and intelligence officials say. information.
Although Mr Trump hailed the total defeat of Islamic State this year – and argued for its territorial collapse in a statement on Sunday night – defense officials in the region see things differently, acknowledging that what remains of the terror group is here to stay.
Over the past several months, ISIS has invaded the sprawling Al Hol tent camp in northeastern Syria, and there is no plan in place to deal with the 70,000 people there, including thousands of family members of ISIS fighters.
US intelligence officials say the Al Hol camp, run by allied Syrian Kurds with little aid or security, is becoming a hotbed of ISIS ideology. The US-backed Syrian Kurdish force also holds more than 10,000 ISIS fighters, including 2,000 foreigners, in separate makeshift prisons.
The detention of all those people could be in jeopardy, U.S. officials said Sunday night, depending on whether any Turkish incursion ignites a much larger conflict in northeastern Syria.