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U.S. Forces Scramble for Syria Exit as Trump Announces Sanctions on Turkey

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10.15.2019 at 04:22am

U.S. Forces Scramble for Syria Exit as Trump Announces Sanctions on Turkey by Robert Burns – Associated Press

Targeting Turkey’s economy, President Donald Trump announced sanctions Monday aimed at restraining the Turks’ assault against Kurdish fighters and civilians in Syria — an assault Turkey began after Trump announced he was moving U.S. troops out of the way.

Meanwhile, the Americans were scrambling for Syria’s exits, a move criticized at home and abroad as opening the door to a resurgence of the Islamic State fighters who were the reason U.S. forces came in the first place.

Trump said the approximately 1,000 U.S. troops who had been partnering with local Kurdish fighters to battle IS in northern Syria are leaving the country. They will remain in the Middle East, he said, to “monitor the situation” and to prevent a revival of IS — a goal that even Trump’s allies say has become much harder as a result of the U.S. pullout…

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U.S. Imposes Penalties on Turkey, Aiming to Stop Incursion Into Syria by Ian Talley and Vivian Salama – Wall Street Journal

President Trump authorized sanctions and raised steel tariffs on Turkey, while threatening more-powerful financial penalties if Ankara continued a military offensive in northern Syria launched after Mr. Trump decided to withdraw U.S. troops from the region.

Mr. Trump also spoke separately with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Kurdish Commander Mazloum Abdi and urged them to negotiate an end to the violence, administration officials said. Mr. Trump, calling for an immediate cease-fire, tapped Vice President Mike Pence and White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien to lead a delegation to Turkey to seek a resolution to the conflict.

The administration’s first punitive actions against Turkey and its effort to start talks came amid widespread criticism on Capitol Hill that Mr. Trump’s decision left Kurdish militias that had aided the U.S.-led fight against Islamic State open to attack. Meanwhile, Democratic and Republican lawmakers said they plan to speed through their own sanctions package starting on Tuesday…

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