Ankara will take on the fight against the ISIS terrorist group in Syria after the United States announced its troop withdrawal from the country, said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Friday.
In a speech in Istanbul, he said Turkey would mobilize to fight remaining ISIS forces in Syria and temporarily delay plans to attack Kurdish fighters in the northeast of Syria - shifts both precipitated by the American decision to withdraw.
“We will be working on our operational plans to eliminate ISIS elements, which are said to remain intact in Syria, in line with our conversation with President Trump,” he added.
The Turkish president had announced plans last week to start an operation east of the Euphrates River in northern Syria to oust the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) from the area that it largely controls. This week, he said the campaign could come at any moment. But on Friday, he cited the talk with Trump as a reason to wait.
“Our phone call with President Trump, along with contacts between our diplomats and security officials and statements by the United States, have led us to wait a little longer,” he said.
The two leaders spoke on December 14.
“We have postponed our military operation against the east of the Euphrates river until we see on the ground the result of America’s decision to withdraw from Syria.”
Erdogan said, however, that this was not an “open-ended waiting period” and that, due to past “negative experiences”, Ankara welcomed the United States’ statements with an equal amount of pleasure and caution.
Turkey has repeatedly voiced frustration over what it says is the slow implementation of a deal with Washington to pull YPG fighters out of Manbij, a town in mainly Arab territory west of the Euphrates in northern Syria.
Erdogan welcomed Trump's decision to withdraw from Syria, but said he remained "cautious" because of "past negative experiences", referring to Ankara's continued disappointment over US support for the YPG.
But two leaders of the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Council, the political arm of the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), warned the battle against the ISIS could be brought to a halt if there was a Turkish attack.
Trump's move has also sparked turmoil in his own administration. US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned on Thursday, reflecting his disagreement with the White House's new strategy in Syria.
Earlier on Friday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey needed to "coordinate this withdrawal with the United States", adding that talks already began.
The co-chairs of the Syrian Democratic Council were in Paris on Friday for talks about the planned US military pullout.
Ilham Ahmad, one of the co-chairs, said they would be "forced to withdraw from the frontlines in Deir Ezzor to take up positions on the border with Turkey to counter any attack" by Ankara.
Ahmad said the forces feared they could "lose control" over detained foreign extremists if IS used the US pullout to regroup, or if Turkey pushed ahead with an attack.
Riad Darar, the council's other co-chair, said the forces would not release hundreds of foreign ISIS fighters held in Syrian Kurdish prisons.
Turkey conducted an operation against ISIS in 2016 which also aimed to block the YPG from joining up the territory it held in northern Syria and staged an offensive against the group in its northwestern enclave of Afrin in January this year.
