Trump letter to Erdogan: Don’t be a tough guy, don’t be a fool
White House releases US President’s warning letter to Turkey’s leader.
The White House has released a letter Donald Trump wrote to Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week in which the US President warned the Turkish leader not to ‘let the world down’ by waging war against the Kurds in Syria.
“Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool,’ Mr Trump wrote.
MORE: No guarantee for ISIS brides | Erdogan writes: We had no choice but to act |Read further news, analysis on the Turkish onslaught
The letter was written on October 9, the day after Mr Trump effectively gave the green light for a Turkish onslaught on Kurdish troops by announcing the withdrawal of US troops from northeast Syria.
Mr Trump threatened in the letter to destroy the Turkish economy if Mr Erdogan “let the world down.”
“You don’t want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of people and I don’t want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy — and I will,” he wrote.
He added: “History will look upon you … forever as the devil if good things don’t happen,” before signing off: “I will call you later.”
The letter was released as Mr Trump delivered an impassioned defence of his controversial military withdrawal, describing it as ‘strategically brilliant’ and saying he would not allow US troops to die in other people’s wars.
The president said the growing conflict between Turkish and Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria was “not our problem” and said it was good that Syria and Russia would now protect the Kurds.
“We have a situation where Turkey is taking land from Syria, Syria is not happy about it, let them work it out, we shouldn’t be over there,” Mr Trump said.
“I’m not going to lose potentially thousands and tens of thousands of American soldiers fighting a war between Turkey and Syria.
“I campaigned on bringing our soldiers back home and that’s what I am doing. I say why are we protecting Syria’s land? (Syria’s president) Assad is not a friend of ours.”
Mr Trump said it was more difficult politically to bring US soldiers home for the region than it would be to keep them there but he was sick of seeing Americans killed in other countries’ wars.
Mr Trump has been widely criticised in Washington and internationally after he was seen to give a free light to a Turkey’s invasion last week of northeastern Syria. The invasion has forced the previously pro-US Kurdish forces into an alliance with Syria and Russia, precipitated the departure of the 1000 US troops in the region and led to the escape of ISIS prisoners.
But Mr Trump said his decision was ultimately good for America’s national interests.
“I view the situation on the Turkish border with Syria to be, for the United States, strategically brilliant. Our soldiers are out of there … Syria is protecting the Kurds. That’s good,” he said ahead of a meeting with the Italian prime minister.
“Syria may have some help with Russia and that’s fine. It’s a lot of sand — they’ve got a lot of sand over there so that’s a lot of sand that they could play with.”
But Mr Trump,’ s comments were criticised by fellow Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham, usually a staunch ally.
“If the president did say that Turkey’s invasion is of no concern to us. I find that to be … an astonishing statement which I completely and totally reject,” he said.
The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives voted 354 to 60 Thursday (AEDT) — a vote that included support from 129 Republicans — for a resolution to oppose Mr Trump’s decision to withdraw US forces from Syria.
A later meeting at the White House on Syria between Democrat leaders and the president saw an angry Mr Trump attack House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a ‘third grade politician.’
“This was not a dialogue,” Democrat Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said of the meeting. “It was a sort of diatribe. A nasty diatribe not focused on facts.”
Earlier Mr Trump continued to criticise the Kurds who until last week, were America’s allies in the war against ISIS in Syria.
“The Kurds are no angels … we paid a lot for them to fight with us … we were the ones to capture ISIS,’ he said. “Who is an angel, there aren’t too many around.”
Mr Trump also repeated his accusation that the Kurds deliberately released some ISIS prisoners in order to pressure the US to remain in the region.
“Some (ISIS prisoners) were released just for effect,” the president claimed.
Mr Trump denied that he had, in effect, given a green light to Turkey to invade after he told Mr Erdogan that the US would not oppose an invasion of northeastern Syria.
“He was never given a green light, they’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” Mr Trump said, adding that Mr Erdogan’s decision to invade had not surprised him.
Mr Trump said Thursday (AEDT) that ISIS would continue to be hunted down in the region even without US forces because all of the players in the area — the Kurds, Turkey, Russia and Syria — hated ISIS as much as the US did.
Mr Trump has called on Turkey to halt its invasion and its hunt of the Kurds, repeatedly warning that the US would “destroy” Turkey’s economy with sanctions if it did not show restraint.
The president has dispatched Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Turkey to discuss the crisis.
In the face of advancing Turkish forces, the Kurds — traditional enemies of the Turks — have formed an alliance with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s Russian backed Syrian forces. The move has seen both Syrian and Russia forces enter Kurdish held towns in northeast Syria the first time in years.
Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia
Has the Gaza ceasefire sown the seeds of an even worse conflict?
Hostage releases are bringing hope, but there also fears freed Palestinian fighters and radicalised prisoners will fuel a fresh cycle of violence.
CIA now favours lab leak theory on origins of Covid-19
A laboratory mishap in Wuhan has been identified as the probable source of virus that killed more than seven million people worldwide.