Published 10:24 IST, October 18th 2019
Trump compares Turkey's attack on Kurds to 'two kids' in schoolyard
Trump said, "sometimes you have to let them fight a little while," over Turkey's military incursion in Syria. after US pulled its troops from northeastern Syria
Donald Trump, after abruptly abandoning the US allies, compared the attack on Syrian Kurds by Turkish military to a schoolyard fight. Addressing in Texas' Dallas, Trump said, "sometimes you have to let them fight a little while," over Turkey's military incursion in Syria.
He added, "Sometimes you have to let them fight. It's like two kids in a lot, you got to let them fight and then you pull them apart. But it was unconventional, but they fought for a few days, but it was pretty vicious. But the Kurds are our friends, Turkey's our friend but they fought, I mean it was nasty."
The 'two kids' remark by the US President came while he was praising the 5-day ceasefire deal struck between US Vice President Mike Pence and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. After meeting with the US Vice President, Turkey agreed to clear the PG Syrian Kurdish fighters from a 32-km 'safe zone' along the border.
Trump on October 16 said that he did not give Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a 'green light' to launch a military offensive against Kurdish militants in Syria. Further adding that Turkish President Erdogan's decision did not surprise him because he wanted to do that for a long time and that he was building up troops on the border with Syria for a long time. He said that did not give Erdogan a green light, "just the opposite of green light."
The deal was reached 11 days after Donald Trump decided to pull out US troops from the northeast Syrian border, taking a dramatic shift in US foreign policy. Trump played down the decision and defended the abandonment of their allies who fought the ISIS along with US troops, saying the Kurds are "not angels."
Families of ISIS group members escaped a displacement camp in northern Syria where a Turkish offensive against Kurdish forces has sparked fierce fighting, Kurdish authorities said on Sunday. Some 12,000 ISIS fighters -- Syrians, Iraqis as well as foreigners from 54 countries -- are detained in Kurdish prisons, according to their official statistics. The displacement camps host some 12,000 foreigners -- 8,000 children and 4,000 women.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor confirmed that "around 100" foreign women and children from families of ISIS members escaped, without specifying their nationalities. Turkey launched its offensive on Wednesday to push Kurdish-led forces away from the northeastern border area of war-torn Syria.
Updated 10:34 IST, October 18th 2019