U.S. Troops Leaving Syria Will Move to Western Iraq, Defense Secretary Says

Erdogan met with Putin, and after 7 hours they came to some agreements. In one area, the Turks will be allowed to enter up to 32 miles. In another area Syria and Russia will be guarding the border - and so on and so forth. Vladimir Putin insisted as he always had, that all foreign troops must eventually leave Syria and respect its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

 

Iraq already announced, the US troops are not welcome to stay.

 

For all the misinformation and bad reporting these days that scene could have taken place anywhere. As for Russians protecting the Kurds will Russia fight Turkey and will NATO (the US) side with Turkey and fight the Russians? Of course I am just asking for your opinion on this.

 

Now that the Kurds reunited with Syria and gave up claims to independence, they have the support and protection of the Syrian government - which means they also have the support of Russia. Nato will only come to the support of a member country if they are attacked, not if they are invading another Nato country as Turkey is doing.

Erdogan is not very stable, and Putin knows it, but they are friends. After 7 hours they came to agreements on how Turkey's security can be maintained, while at the same time they can get the hell out of Syria.

 

But haven't the Syrian Kurds been invading Turkey for sometime now?

 

That would be the PKK fighting the Turks and they were in Turkey before the Turks.

 

The US expedition into Syria that began with 50 troops going in for 30 days only has ended.

Trump triumphs again.

 

Not really, but Erdogan believes that the Syrian Kurd forces are helping the PKK - which they probably are. There have been wars in Turkey with the Kurds, and I know that in two of the wars the Kurd towns were cordoned off by the Turkish army and no one was able to see what was going on. The UN believes the Kurds were gassed so they must have a lot of hatred towards Turkey.

This last time, when Erdogan decided for political reasons to restart the war with the Kurds, the PKK was well prepared and many Turkish soldiers were killed. The war is probably still going on.

Anyway for all the illegality of Turkey's actions, Erdogan does have a point when he said that Turkey must become assertive or it will cease to exist. That assertiveness is not just towards Syria, but towards Libya, Iraq, Cyprus, Crete and the Islands of the Aegean over the mineral wealth in the Eastern Mediterranean. They have even threatened France and chased away Italy for daring to search in waters that were allotted to them by Cyprus. Pompeo has spoken out against Turkey's actions.

Because Turkey has a history of genocide and ethnic cleansing as well as their actions against the Kurds and their threats and offenses towards Greece, Cyprus, Iraq and other countries as well, they are hated by all their neighbors. Erdogan feels the only way they are going to survive would be to restore the power of the Ottoman Empire. To them, the break up of the Ottoman Empire, was a grave injustice.

This sense of injustice together with their desire to restore their greatness, has now become so ingrained in the Turkish minds, that anyone who comes after Erdogan will have to follow his policies in order to survive politically.

Anyway, this is what I think.

 

Interesting read. Thanks.