President Donald Trump has surprised the Pentagon and even
his allies in Washington as well as the international community,
with his abrupt decision to give Turkey the green light
to launch a cross-border military operation
against the Syrian Democratic Forces.
That's the Kurdish-dominated group
that American troops have armed, trained,
and fought alongside in the battle with Isis.
With me to discuss the possible outcomes
is Andrew England, the Financial Times Middle East editor.
Andrew, first of all, tell us why is this important?
Why should anyone care about what's
going on with a small group in Syria?
Yeah, it's a small group, but it's a very important group.
For several years now, they've been
at the forefront of the US's battle against Isis
in northeastern Syria which is an area controlled
by the SDF, the Syrian Democratic Forces.
Now, these guys have been on the ground.
They've been very successful in reclaiming territory from Isis.
They've captured thousands of Isis fighters,
about 1,000 foreign fighters.
They are detaining those fighters, plus their families,
wives, and children, this kind of thing.
So the main concern for Europeans looking at this
is what happens to the battle against Isis?
And what happens to all these fighters?
Because many European countries don't want
to actually take them back.
Absolutely, and the concern is, if Turkey
does launch an operation into northeastern
Syria against the Kurds, then they'll be distracted.
The detention of all these Syrian Isis fighters
would be in jeopardy.
What happens to them?
What happens to the battle against Isis?
Does Isis re-emerge?
So that's one element.
Why is Turkey so determined to move into Syria?
The Syrian war is practically over now.
So why start a new front?
You're right.
Turkey has for years had concerns
about what they believe to be Kurdish separatists.
The PKK, a Turkish group, has been fighting the Turkish state
for more than 30 years, and Turkey sees the Syrian kurds
as an extension of the PKK.
So in Turkey's eyes, the US has been
arming, training terrorists - what Turkey calls terrorists
- on their border.
So this has for a long time been a point
of contention between the US and Turkey, Ankara.
And what do we think happened two nights ago?
I know that for a while Donald Trump
has wanted to bring the troops back home,
and he tried earlier this year, at the end of last year,
and his secretary of defense, Jim Mattis at the time,
resigned.
So he went back on his decision, at least partly.
What happened now?
Good question, but it's Donald Trump,
so we're not really sure.
What we do know is that Mr Trump had a telephone
conversation with President Erdogan of Turkey
on Sunday, and then on Sunday night, in the early hours,
the White House put out a statement
saying Turkey would launch operations in northeast Syria
soon.
And US troops, who've been supporting the Kurdish
militants but also been doing joint patrols with the Turks
along that border as confidence building measures,
would withdraw.
So basically, he was seen to be giving, like you said,
a green light.
But he's essentially upended his own government's policy
towards Syria and towards Turkey.
Yes, but it wouldn't be the first time, and to be fair,
Donald Trump has long said that he
wants to bring the troops home.
As you said, in December last year,
he announced that he was going to take an estimated 2,000
American troops out of northeastern Syria.
There's about 1,000 left.
So he's always made that a campaign issue, and he's always
been very clear he doesn't really care
about what happens in Syria.
For him, he said, the priority is the fight against Isis.
He claims the Isis caliphate, self-declared caliphate
is defeated, because Isis has lost its territory.
So he kind of wants to wash his hands of this now.
He says, look, the kurds, that we paid them.
They made lots of money.
This is not our war.
He said, we were supposed to be there for a short period
and we've been there all this time.
Let's get home.
I see the logic in that, but what is the problem?
Who actually gains from this, and is there
any chance of not only Isis coming back but other elements,
other parts of the Syrian war, erupting again?
I think the last thing Syria needs is a new front
and any more instability.
That northeastern region has pretty much stayed out
of the civil war that's been going on since 2011 in Syria,
and the Kurds haven't fought against Assad.
But what this does, it sends a message to
- or this is the fear - it sends a message to any US
allies, local allies who've been fighting on the ground,
we don't care about you.
You're expendable.
We can dump you.
And it will be seen as a symbolic victory, at least,
to Iran and Russia which have sided with President Bashar
al-Assad, the Syrian president, during the civil war,
because it will be seen as another sign
of the US withdrawing from the Middle East symbolically.
Just saying, we no longer care about what
happens in the Middle East, which
would be seen to embolden Iran and Russia, which have taken
advantage of European and US marginalisation in Syria
to extend their own influence.
Has Donald Trump received any support from anyone?
President Erdogan, no.
To be fair, Republicans in the US spoke...
Yes, I saw that Lindsey Graham said
that the decision was short-sighted and
irresponsible.
Exactly, a disaster in the making.
Democrats have spoken out against.
European governments have put out statements
saying that they're concerned about what
happens in the fight against Isis, anything
that brings more stability.
Aid agencies have raised concerns
about another flood of displaced people.
It's really interesting, Andrew, that the concern is not
about the Kurds, and yet the history of the Kurds
has been one where they are repeatedly
let down by western allies that they work with.
What happens to the Kurds in this case?
This was always going to be a huge question
anyway, because the Kurds, the SDF,
they've used the battle against Isis and the civil war
to carve out this kind of autonomous
enclave in the northeast.
Now, the Assad regime has been fighting rebels and opposition
across the country.
So they've stayed clear of this, and they've
allowed the SDF to maintain their autonomy,
fight against Isis, and have their alliance with the US.
At some stage, this was always going
to become a question of what happens next?
Now, the SDF has had talks with the Assad regime previously,
as the war in Syria has diminished,
and they have to try and work out what kind of arrangement
there will be.
This could actually push the SDF closer to the Assad regime,
and whether they can negotiate some form
of autonomous, decentralised rule or not, but we don't know.
That's going to be a big question that's
got to be resolved, and it was always
going to be a sticking point as the Assad regime reasserts
control over most of the rest of the country.
Once they've done that, then the question of what happens
in this northeastern area on the Turkish...
Is there an argument that Donald Trump
is ultimately right in his analysis of the situation?
Because what else would the Kurds do,
and where else would they go, if they're squeezed between Turkey
which doesn't want them to have any autonomy and the regime
in Damascus which also doesn't want them to have autonomy.
So unless the US protects them for the much longer term,
they're going to have to make that choice
and to re-engage with the Assad regime.
Look, I think the Kurdish issue in the northeast
is always going to have to be resolved.
There's got to be a solution to it at some point,
or there will be conflict.
And Trump is correct in saying that the battle,
or this conflict, the simmering conflict between Ankara
and Kurdish separatists, has been going on for decades.
The question is how you manage it.
What had happened after Trump was persuaded not to withdraw
all his troops, after saying he would,
in December last year, we've seen sort of some confidence
building measures.
So US troops, since August, have been doing joint patrols
with the Turks on the border, and they've
been doing joint air patrols, and the SDF
was removing some of its defences close to the border.
The problem was Erdogan wasn't satisfied.
He wanted to go deeper into Syria.
He wanted to create, he wants to create a safe zone
32 kilometres deep inside Syria.
The Americans weren't going to go that deep.
So now, seems like he's convinced Trump
that the way to resolve this is allow
him to move Turkish troops in and create this zone.
And then Erdogan argues that that will allow
for the resettlement of some of the 3.6m refugees that Turkey
is hosting, and that's a huge domestic pressure on Erdogan.
Assuming that the refugees want to go back.
Assuming they do and assuming that it's not forced,
would that shake up the whole demographics of this region?
You're sending Arab Syrians back into this area who
didn't come from this area, but still, you're
going to have to resolve the Kurdish question.
And so the question is should the US
be there to play a leading role in confidence building
measures between the Kurdish militants
and Turkey whilst the resolution is resolved?
And should there be greater political pressure
on actually getting the settlement,
or some sort of political transition in Syria,
that everybody seems to have forgotten about.
Well, yeah, we've been waiting for a very long time
for a political transition in Syria.
So my last question to you, Andrew,
is, given the backlash in DC, and indeed across the world,
do you think this time President Trump will
stick with the decision, or you think by tomorrow
he would have said, OK, now I understand this better,
and I will not pull all the troops.
I think that's what we need to wait and see what happens.
After there was a backlash, Trump
tweeted that he would economically destroy Turkey
if they did things that were against certain limits.
We don't know what that means.
Was it a response for the backlash, is it just bluster,
or would he put pressure on Turkey not to go far?
Because the other question we have
to ask is what will Erdogan do next?
He's been for months talking about the need
to create this zone deep inside Syria
and constantly belligerent rhetoric against the Kurdish
militants.
How will he act now?
Now, he's got the green light.
The onus is on what does he do?
Now, will he go deep into Syria and potentially
create that conflict with the Syrian Kurds,
or will they just go in so far, where
they don't go deep enough to actually trigger a bigger
conflict?
So there are many variables I think
we're going to have to watch, but clearly, Jim Mattis, who
stood up to Trump last time and then resigned, he's gone.
There are less adults in the room,
as we say, in the White House, in the administration,
to put pressure on Trump, but clearly, there
is a Republican backlash which might make him think twice.
So a story that we will keep on watching very closely
with our correspondents on the ground and with you
here, in London.
Thank you, Andrew.
Thank you, Roula.