Page 7 - TURKRptOct19

2.0 Politics
2.1 Trump gives green light to Turkey’s planned Syria
incursion
The White House said on October 7 that the US is to step back as Turkey starts a military operation in northeast Syria.
Trump faced attacks from both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has threatened to call for the suspension of Turkey’s Nato membership and for the imposition of sanctions on Ankara if the Turks cross into northeastern Syria and attack Kurdish forces stationed there.
Graham is known as a Donald Trump loyalist on most issues but has severely criticised the US president’s decision on October 6.
The question now will be whether the Trump administration will be seen as abandoning its Kurdish allies and whether there could now be a major military clash between the Kurds and Turkish forces.
The White House said the zone would be put in place by Turkey with no involvement or support from US forces.
Turkey would become responsible for all Islamic State group prisoners in the area, it added.
“Turkey has neither the intent, desire, nor capacity to manage 60,000 detainees, which State and [Pentagon inspectors general] warn is the nucleus for a resurgent Isis [Islamic State]. Believing otherwise is a reckless gamble with our national security,” Brett McGurk, former US special presidential envoy for the coalition against Islamic State, said on Twitter.
"The United States government has pressed France, Germany, and other European nations, from which many captured ISIS fighters came, to take them back but they did not want them and refused.
"The United States will not hold them for what could be many years and great cost to the United States taxpayer."
The US armed the Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey considers a terrorist organisation, in its fight to wipe out the so-called caliphate of Islamic State that existed in Syria.
Erdogan badly needs some successes that score well with Turkish voters. He’s widely seen to have botched the Turkish economy, leading it into a currency crisis that resulted in a biting recession, and Turks have been making their displeasure known in local elections, while former top members of the president’s party have split off to form their own parties with an eye on dislodging the newly vulnerable Erdogan.
BLOG: How far could some Kurd killing go to saving Erdogan’s skin?.
7 TURKEY Country Report October 2019 www.intellinews.com