Trump's 'unusual' letter raises eyebrows as US pushes for Syria ceasefire

LONDON - The Kremlin on Thursday questioned the tone of a letter sent by US President Donald Trump to his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan, saying it was highly unusual for correspondence between heads of state.

The comments from Russia come amid widespread bemusement over the letter's strange tone.

The White House on Wednesday released the Oct. 9 letter, in which Trump urged Erdogan to halt Turkey's cross-border offensive into northeast Syria, saying "Don't be a tough guy" and "Don't be a fool!"

"Let's work out a good deal!" the letter said.

Turkish officials told the BBC on Thursday that Erdogan promptly threw the letter in the dustbin after reading it.

Turkish presidential sources told BBC Turkish that "President Erdogan received the letter, thoroughly rejected it and put it in the bin."

Turkey has been defiant in the face of worldwide criticism over its assault on Kurdish forces in northern Syria, with Erdogan dismissing the threat of US sanctions and Western criticism that he calls hypocritical.

On Wednesday, the Turkish president told lawmakers that the army would not let up in its offensive until Kurdish forces "lay down their arms" and withdraw from the 30 km deep area Ankara has earmarked for a "safe zone" along Syria's border with Turkey.

Trump is battling to control the political damage following his decision to pull US troops out of northern Syria, clearing the way for the Turkish incursion against America's Kurdish allies.

Trump had the letter released to bolster his view that he did not give Turkey a green light to invade Syria. Many lawmakers have been sharply critical of his decision to remove American forces from the conflict zone.

Russian and Syrian forces have rushed in to fill the void created by Trump's withdrawal of the US troops that had been stationed in the region to advise the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which Ankara associates with an outlawed group that has waged a deadly insurgency inside Turkey for decades.

"You don't often encounter such language in correspondence between heads of state. It's a highly unusual letter," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

Moscow's ties with Washington are at post-Cold War lows, but the Kremlin is usually careful not to call into question actions by Trump whom Russian politicians often cast as a positive force in ties who is held back by an anti-Russian US establishment.

The release of the letter came one day before a key visit by US Vice President Mike Pence to Ankara. Pence's meeting with Erdogan reportedly lasted about one hour and 20 minutes - longer than expected, according to a US official. They were later joined by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other officials.

Photographs showed both Pence and Erdogan wearing dour expressions as they shook hands ahead of their meeting. The US officials were expected to warn Erdogan that he will face additional economic sanctions if he doesn't halt his assault on Kurdish forces - but any US demands for a ceasefire are seen as having been severely undermined by the US president himself.

Trump suggested on Wednesday that Kurdish fighters might be a greater terror threat than the Islamic State group, and he welcomed the efforts of Russia and the Assad government to fill the void left after he ordered the removal of nearly all US troops from Syria.

"Syria may have some help with Russia, and that's fine," Trump said. "They've got a lot of sand over there. So, there's a lot of sand that they can play with."

He added: "Let them fight their own wars."

Facing a barrage of criticism in Washington for abandoning the Kurds, Trump has already imposed sanctions on three Turkish ministers and raised tariffs on its steel industry. Pence's office said the US would continue to pursue "punishing economic sanctions" unless there was "an immediate ceasefire".

However, as he sought to persuade Erdogan to agree to a ceasefire, Pence also confronted doubts about American credibility as an emissary of an inconsistent president.

"Given how erratic President Trump's decision-making process and style has been, it's just hard to imagine any country on the receiving end of another interlocutor really being confident that what Pence and Pompeo are delivering reflects Trump's thinking at the moment or what it will be in the future," said Jeffrey Prescott, the Obama administration's senior director for Iran, Iraq, Syria and the Gulf states on the National Security Council.

The US withdrawal is the worst decision of Trump's presidency, said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who meets often with the president and is one of his strongest and most important supporters in Congress.

"To those who think the Mideast doesn't matter to America, remember 9/11 — we had that same attitude on 9/10/2001," Graham said.