TIL Desk/World/Beijing/ President Donald Trump said that American troops should not be placed in harm”s way amid the Turkish army”s military campaign against Kurdish militias in Syria”s northeastern border region. “If Turkey goes into Syria, that”s between Turkey and Syria,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. “It”s not between Turkey and the United States, like a lot of stupid people would like us to – would like you to believe,”.
In that regard, Trump defended his decision earlier this month to move a contingent of American special operations troops from a stretch of Syrian borderland to elsewhere in northern Syria and thus allow Turkey to move against the People”s Protection Units (YPG), a mainly Kurdish militia group denounced by the Turks as terrorists.
In a second press conference minutes later, Trump once again referred to the withdrawal of US forces from that border strip. “And I”m pleased to report that in Syria, Turkey – the border – we only had 28 soldiers, not 50. We thought it was 50. Somebody reported 50. It was actually down to 28. They were removed a while ago. All American soldiers are away from the site,” the president said.