US President Donald Trump announced that the United States have decided to withdraw from war-torn country of Syria ‘very soon’. He did not give further details into the decision.
“We will be coming out of Syria very soon. Let the other people take care of it now,” Trump said on Thursday in a televised rally held in the state of Ohio.
Trump expressed that the US gets nothing in return even after spending trillions of dollars in the Middle East.
He did not divulge into details pertaining to withdrawal of its air operation against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) fighters, who remain in Syria.
He asserted that the Ohio workers that the American troops have done their job by “knocking the hell out of ISIS”.
“We’re going to have 100 percent of the caliphate, as they call it. Sometimes referred to as land. We’re taking it all back quickly.”
US troops are mostly stationed in the northern part of the Syrian country and are allied with Kurdish YPG, which is US’ main ally in its fight against ISIL.
Last week, the State Department of US denied several reports that it had finalized a deal with Turkey about the presence of American troops in the Kurdish city of Manbij.
Turkey has recently launched a military operation inside Syria against the YPG, a Kurdish militant group considered to be the armed wing of Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria and having ties to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)
Turkey, which recently launched a military operation inside Syria, considers the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria and its armed-wing YPG, having ties to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to be “terrorist groups”.
The PKK has waged an armed fight against the Turkish state that killed tens of thousands of people.
Ankara is eyeing to expand its military operation in Syria’s northwestern Afrin region to other Kurdish-held areas further east, including Manbij, which prompted fears for a possible confrontation with US troops.
Last week, Turkey announced that Ankara and Washington had reached a general agreement on the operation regarding Manbij and that the Turkish side is now waiting for its NATO ally to implement the deal.
In January 2018, the Turkish military launched a military operation in Afrin district of Syria. The operation was code-named as Operation Olive Branch. The launch was conducted in the SDF-controlled Afrin District and the Tell Rifaat Subdistrict. The offensive is target the Kurdish-led Democratic Union Party in Syria (PYD), its armed wing People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) positions that guards the Syrian city of Afrin. Turkey even claimed that it is fighting with ISIL despite the fact that the group has no existence in the city of Afrin.
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