Trump officials rush to Turkey as Moscow advances to fill Syria void from US retreat

Trump officials rush to Turkey as Moscow advances to fill Syria void from US retreat

by Joseph Anthony
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Turkey-backed Syrian rebel fighters walk together in the border town of Tal Abyad, Syria

The Trump administration dispatched its top officials to Turkey on Wednesday for emergency talks to try to persuade Ankara to halt an assault on northern Syria, while Russian troops swept into territory abandoned by Washington in a sudden retreat.

Robert Oโ€™Brien, White House national security adviser since last month, arrived in Turkey aiming to meet Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Wednesday. Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are expecting to meet the following day with President Tayyip Erdogan.

The administration is trying to contain the fallout from Erdoganโ€™s decision to send forces last week to attack Syrian Kurdish militia that were Washingtonโ€™s close allies.

Erdogan repeated his insistence there would be no ceasefire, and said he might call off a visit to the United States next month because of the โ€œvery big disrespectโ€ shown by U.S. politicians.

He also denounced the United States for taking the โ€œunlawful, ugly stepโ€ of imposing criminal charges against a Turkish state bank over allegations it broke sanctions on Iran.

The Turkish assault, launched after a phone call between Erdogan and Trump, has forced Washington to abandon a strategy in place for five years and pull its troops from northern Syria.

It has spawned a humanitarian crisis, with 160,000 civilians taking flight, a security alert over thousands of Islamic State fighters abandoned in Kurdish jails, and a political maelstrom at home for Trump, accused by congressional leaders, including fellow Republicans, of betraying loyal U.S. allies, the Kurds.

Syrian government forces, backed by Washingtonโ€™s adversaries Russia and Iran, have meanwhile taken advantage of the power vacuum left by retreating U.S. troops to advance swiftly into the largest swath of territory previously outside their grasp.

Washington announced a package of sanctions to punish Turkey on Monday, but Trumpโ€™s critics said the measures, mainly a hike in steel tariffs and a pause in trade talks, were too feeble to have an impact.

Twenty-four hours later U.S. prosecutorsโ€™ charges were unveiled against Turkeyโ€™s majority state-owned Halkbank for taking part in a multi-billion dollar scheme to evade Iran sanctions. Washington says the case is unrelated to politics. Halkbank denies wrongdoing and called the case part of the sanctions against Turkey.

US โ€˜SHOW OF FORCEโ€™

The Turkish advance, and Washingtonโ€™s need to swiftly evacuate its own forces, have brought the two biggest militaries in NATO close to confrontation on the battlefield. Washington has complained about Turkish artillery fire near its troops.

In the latest potential flashpoint, U.S. military aircraft carried out a โ€œshow of forceโ€ over the border city of Kobani after Turkish-backed fighters came close to American troops there, a U.S. official said.

Pence said Erdogan had promised Trump by phone that Turkey would not attack Kobani, a strategically important border city where U.S. forces first came to the aid of Kurds against Islamic State, which massacred Kurdish civilians there in 2014.

Erdogan said he had not broken his promise to Trump: โ€œMr Trumpโ€™s remark on Kobani was โ€˜Donโ€™t strike thereโ€™,โ€ Erdogan told reporters late on Tuesday. โ€œWe said that we had only done an encircling operation there at the moment.โ€

LAND RUSH

Washingtonโ€™s hasty exit has created a land rush between Turkey and Russia โ€“ now the undisputed foreign powers in the area โ€“ to partition the formerly U.S.-protected Kurdish area.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the eight-year Syrian war, said on Wednesday Russian troops had crossed the Euphrates River to advance to Kobaniโ€™s outskirts.

Lebanonโ€™s al-Mayadeen TV reported that Russian-backed Syrian forces had also set up outposts in Raqqa, the one-time capital of Islamic Stateโ€™s caliphate, which the Kurds captured in 2017 at the peak of their campaign with U.S. support.

Hours after Washington announced its pullout on Sunday, the Kurds, who lost thousands of fighters waging battle against Islamic State in a five-year alliance with the United States, made an abrupt deal with Washingtonโ€™s adversaries, the Russian- and Iranian-backed government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Russia-backed Syrian troops have swiftly moved into towns across the breadth of the Kurdish-held area, including the city of Manbij, a major target of Turkey which U.S. forces said on Tuesday they had quit.

Reuters journalists travelling with Syrian government forces on Tuesday entered Manbij and saw Russian and Syrian flags flying from buildings near the city. Russian state television reported on Wednesday that Syrian government forces had occupied bases abandoned by U.S. troops.

Erdogan, who is due in Moscow later this month, said he had told President Vladimir Putin that Russia could move forces into Manbij, provided that the Kurdish YPG militia was cleared out.

โ€œI told this to Mr Putin as well,โ€ Erdogan said. โ€œIf you are clearing Manbij of terrorist organisations, then go ahead, you or the regime can provide all the logistics. But if you are not going to do this, the people there are telling us to save them.โ€

โ€˜WE WILL NEVER DECLARE A CEASEFIREโ€™

Erdogan says Trump approved his plans for a โ€œsafe zoneโ€ around 30 km (20 miles) inside Syria, stretching hundreds of miles from the Euphrates river in the west to the Iraqi border in the east. Trump says he did not endorse the Turkish plans but Washington cannot stay to police the Middle East.

โ€œThey say โ€˜declare a ceasefireโ€™. We will never declare a ceasefire,โ€ Erdogan told reporters on a plane back from a visit to Azerbaijan late on Tuesday. โ€œThey are pressuring us to stop the operation. They are announcing sanctions. Our goal is clear. We are not worried about any sanctions,โ€ he said.

The Turkish campaign shows no sign of abating on the ground, with most of the fighting so far around two border cities, Ras al Ain and Tel Abyad. A Reuters cameraman in the Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar reported the sound of heavy gunfire just across the frontier in Ras al Ain, which Turkeyโ€™s Defence Ministry had earlier said its forces controlled.

Although U.S. sanctions announced by Trump so far were seen by markets as mild, the case against its second biggest state lender Halkbank was a reminder that Turkeyโ€™s economy could be vulnerable to measures that hit its financial system.

The charges against Halkbank stem from a case that has caused friction in U.S. relations with Turkey for years. Shares of Halkbank plunged as much 7% on Wednesday, despite a ban on short selling.

REUTERS

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