As Turkey Attacks Kurds in Syria, U.S. is on the Sideline
The New York Times
By: Mark Landler & Carlotta Gall
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When President Trump met with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at the United Nations last September, he embraced him as a friend and declared, “We’re as close as we’ve ever been.” Five months later, Turkey is waging an all-out assault against Syrian Kurds, America’s closest allies in the war against the Islamic State …
“The U.S. has tried to walk a very fine line in Syria,” said Ali Soufan, a former F.B.I. counterterrorism agent who is now chairman of The Soufan Group. But, he said, “as the battlefield shrinks in Syria, the line has become near impossible to maintain.”
Mr. Soufan said the United States “would likely have to either dramatically scale back its support of the Kurdish rebels — which would be seen as yet another U.S. betrayal of the few groups that have consistently supported and helped the U.S. in Syria and Iraq — or risk indirect and even direct conflict with Turkey, a fellow NATO member …”
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