Trump says Turkey, Kurds needed to fight 'like two kids'

WASHINGTON D.C. - US President Donald Trump Thursday welcomed the temporary ceasefire in northern Syria and said he allowed Turkish and Kurdish forces to clash in deadly battle because they were like children who needed to fight each other.

"It was unconventional what I did. I said they're going to have to fight a little while," Trump told a rally of supporters in Dallas, Texas.

"Like two kids in a lot, you have got to let them fight and then you pull them apart.

"They fought for a few days and it was pretty vicious."

Trump triggered the week-long Turkish offensive against the Kurds by withdrawing US troops from northeast Syria.

More than 500 people have been killed, including dozens of civilians, mostly on the Kurdish side, and 300,000 civilians have been displaced within Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.

Trump stressed that "not one drop of American blood" was shed.

Earlier he hailed the announcement that Turkey had agreed to suspend its offensive, calling it a "great day" for the Turks and the Kurds.

After hours of negotiation in Ankara, the two nations on Thursday agreed to a five-day cease-fire in the Turks' deadly attacks on Kurdish fighters in northern Syria. The Kurds were US allies in the fight against the Islamic State group but came under assault after Trump ordered US troops to leave the area earlier this month.

The agreement requires the Kurds to vacate a swath of territory in Syria along the Turkish border in an arrangement that largely solidifies Turkey's position and aims in the weeklong conflict.

"We have a five-day ceasefire," Trump told reporters, after Vice President Mike Pence said Ankara had agreed to suspend its military operation, and end it entirely once Kurdish fighters withdraw from a safe zone along the Turkey-Syria border.

"It's a great day for the United States," the president said in Fort Worth, Texas, ahead of a re-election rally.

"It's a great day for Turkey," Trump said. "It's a great day for the Kurds. It's a great day for civilization."

"This is a situation where everybody's happy," he declared.

Pence, who reached the deal with Erdogan during talks in Ankara on Thursday, hailed the agreement as the way to end the bloodshed caused by Turkey's invasion.

But he remained silent on whether it amounted to a second abandonment of America's former Kurdish allies, many of whom are branded as terrorists by Ankara. The deal includes no apparent long-term consequences for Turkey for its incursion into Syria.

A gift for Turkey

In contrast with Pence's description of a limited safe zone, the agreement would effectively create a zone of control patrolled by the Turkish military that Ankara wants to stretch for the entire border from the Euphrates River to the Iraqi border, though the agreement did not define the extent of the zone. Turkish forces currently control about a quarter of that length, captured in the past nine days.

The rest is held by the Kurdish-led forces or by the Syrian government military, backed by Russia, which the Kurds invited to move in to shield them from the Turks. None of those parties has much reason to let Turkish forces into the areas.

But the agreement essentially gives the Turks what they had sought to achieve with their military operation in the first place.

After the Kurdish forces are cleared from the safe zone, Turkey has committed to a permanent cease-fire but is under no obligation to withdraw its troops. In addition, the deal gives Turkey relief from sanctions the administration had imposed and threatened to increase, meaning there will be no penalty for the operation.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the United States had accepted the idea of a "safe zone" long pushed by Turkey, and he insisted Turkish armed forces will control the zone. He also made clear that Turkey will not stop at a previously limited zone; he said Turkish control of the Syrian side of the border must extend all the way to the Iraqi border.

Caught in the middle, the commander of Kurdish-led forces in Syria, Mazloum Abdi, told Kurdish TV, "We will do whatever we can for the success of the cease-fire agreement." But one Kurdish official, Razan Hiddo, declared that Kurdish people would refuse to live under Turkish occupation.

Before the talks, the Kurds indicated they would object to any agreement along the lines of what was announced by Pence. But Pence maintained that the US had obtained "repeated assurances from them that they'll be moving out."

Trump seemed to endorse the Turkish aim of ridding the Syrian side of the border of the Kurdish fighters. "They had to have it cleaned out," he said.

Trump also heaped praise on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and said it would no longer be necessary to impose US sanctions on Turkey.

"He's a hell of a leader," Trump said. "He did the right thing."

'Obscene and ignorant'

Trump has come under bipartisan fire in Washington for abruptly pulling US troops in Syria near the Turkish border, paving the way for Ankara's operation against the Kurds, who have been US allies in the fight against the Islamic State group.

Brett McGurk, former presidential special envoy for the anti-IS coalition, said the US President "seems to have no care for the consequence of his decisions on our personnel in the field." 

The agreement struck by Pence also left some lawmakers in Washington, including in Trump's Republican Party, unimpressed.

Sen. Mitt Romney, the Republicans' presidential nominee in 2012, said he welcomed the cease-fire but wanted to know what America's role in the region would be and why Turkey was facing no consequences for its invasion.

"Further, the cease-fire does not change the fact that America has abandoned an ally," he said on the Senate floor.

"Other than giving Kurds a chance to leave so they don't get slaughtered, it doesn't sound like a change of any of the other dynamics I'm concerned about," Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters.

Senator Lindsey Graham, who hours earlier unveiled legislation that would impose sharp sanctions on Turkey, said that while he was encouraged by the recent developments between Pence and Erdogan, "we're going to keep working" to get the sanctions bill to the Senate floor for a vote.

Republicans and Democrats in the House, bitterly divided over the Trump impeachment inquiry, banded together Wednesday for an overwhelming 354-60 denunciation of the US troop withdrawal.

Turkey and Syrian rebel proxies began the offensive to clear the region of Kurdish fighters who Ankara brands terrorists. Ankara considers Syrian Kurdish YPG militants to be an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) - a group that has fought a bloody insurgency inside Turkey for 35 years.

But the YPG formed the main fighting unit of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who were US partners in the campaign against IS jihadists and were trained by US troops and advisers on the ground in northern Syria.

As Pence was discussing the ceasefire deal in Ankara, US troops were continuing to board aircraft leaving northern Syria. Officials said a couple of hundred had already departed, with hundreds more consolidated at a few bases waiting to move out.

Sen. Graham, usually seen as a Trump confidant who has nevertheless joined the criticism the president's pullout, said he thinks US troops will be needed as part of an effort to implement and enforce a halt to the fighting.

"There's just no way around it," he said. "We need to maintain control of the skies" and work with the Kurds.