Trump Says Turkey Can Easily Mop Up ISIS Remnants in Syria
- President said to have asked ‘Johnny’ Bolton for U.S. pullout
- U.S. troop withdrawal puts Turks in control in key region
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Days after handing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a diplomatic win by announcing he’ll pull U.S. troops out of Syria, President Donald Trump defended the move, saying Turkey “should be able to easily take care of whatever remains” of Islamic State.
Trump’s action on Syria, which was announced on Twitter and triggered the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and later Brett McGurk, a leading U.S. diplomat, came a week after the president was supposed to tell his Turkish counterpart to stop testing his patience with military threats in Syria.