President Trump’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria is dependent on Turkey agreeing to not attack Kurdish forces who have helped fight the Islamic State, according to national security adviser John Bolton.
“There are objectives that we want to accomplish that condition the withdrawal,” Bolton told reporters in Jerusalem on Sunday, according to the Associated Press. “The timetable flows from the policy decisions that we need to implement.”
Bolton’s comments publicly confirm the Trump administration’s shift in policy to slow down the president’s call for an immediate exit of U.S. forces from Syria. Trump’s Dec. 19 announcement regarding the 2,000 troops stationed in the country drew bipartisan criticism from lawmakers and led to the resignation of former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
The U.S. is likely to remain at the Al Tanf military base in southern Syria using Trump’s authority under Article II of the Constitution, Bolton said, adding that another condition for a pullout was eliminating the remnants of ISIS forces in Syria.
“The primary point is we are going to withdraw from northeastern Syria,” Bolton said, NBC News reported. “Then there is the Al Tanf garrison, which is still very strategically important in connection with our determination that Iran not achieve this arc of control stretching from Iran through Iraq into Lebanon and into Syria.”
Bolton is in the middle of a trip to Israel and Turkey to discuss Trump’s drawdown strategy with allies in the region, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkish officials deem Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, to be terrorists who have contributed to instability in Turkey.
“We don’t think the Turks ought to undertake military action that’s not fully coordinated with and agreed to by the United States, at a minimum so they don’t endanger our troops, but also so that they meet the president’s requirement that the Syrian opposition forces that have fought with us are not endangered,” Bolton said.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford and Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS James Jeffrey will join Bolton in Ankara, according to the reports.
