Friday, March 30th., 2018
State Department says they are 'unaware' of such a move in wake of Ohio speech...." see below
Trump says US troops to get out of Syria 'very soon'
"Donald Trump says US will withdraw from Syria 'very soon' - despite promise not to telegraph military thinking
State Department says they are 'unaware' of such a move in wake of Ohio speech...." see below
Trump says US troops to get out of Syria 'very soon'
US president complains the US spends trillions of dollars in the Middle East, but gets 'nothing' in return.
![US troops in Syria are embedded with the Kurdish YPG, which is considered as a 'terrorist group' by Turkey [Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2018/3/29/f708b9d90bb141cd84f090541077f57c_18.jpg "Trump says US troops to get out of Syria 'very soon'")
US President Donald Trump has declared that the United States will withdraw from war-torn Syria "very soon", without offering any other details.
"We will be coming out of Syria very soon.
Let the other people take care of it now," Trump said on Thursday in a
televised rally in the state of Ohio.
Trump complained that the US spends trillions of dollars in the Middle East, but get "nothing" in return.
He did not say whether the withdrawal also includes the US
halting its air operation against the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) fighters, who remain in Syria.He told the Ohio workers that the American troops have "knocked the hell out of ISIS".
"We're going to have 100 percent of the caliphate, as they call it. Sometimes referred to as land. We're taking it all back quickly."
US troops in Syria are mostly stationed in the northern part of the country, and are embedded with the Kurdish YPG, its main ally in fighting ISIL.
Last week, the US State Department denied reports that it reached a deal with Turkey on the presence of American troops in the Kurdish city of Manbij.
Turkey, which recently launched a military operation inside Syria, considers the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria and its armed-wing YPG to be "terrorist groups" with ties to the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The PKK has waged a decades-long armed fight against the Turkish state that has killed tens of thousands of people.
Ankara seels to expand its operation in Syria's northwestern Afrin region to other Kurdish-held areas further east, including Manbij, prompting fears for a possible confrontation with US troops.
Last week, Turkey said Ankara and Washington had reached a general agreement on Manbij and that the Turkish side is now waiting for its NATO ally to implement the deal.
Donald Trump says US will withdraw from Syria 'very soon' - despite promise not to telegraph military thinking
State Department says they are 'unaware' of such a move in wake of Ohio speech
The Independent US
Mr Trump boasted at a rally in Ohio, the main focus of which was supposed to be US infrastructure, that his administration is winning the fight against Isis.
“We’re knocking the hell out of Isis. We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon,” the president said. “Let the other people take care of it now.
“We got to get back to our country where we belong, where we want to be,” he added.
However, when asked about Mr Trump’s remarks later, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said she “unaware” about any plans for a troop withdrawal.
The remarks also went against repeated promises from Mr Trump over the last two years that he would not talk publicly about military matters. It was something he criticised frequently on the campaign trail and in April last year, during remarks about Syria, he said: ”Militarily, I don’t like to say where I’m going and what I’m doing.”
The Pentagon has acknowledged about 2,000 troops in Syria, many of them working closely with the Kurdish militia the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) against Isis.
Last year, the SDF captured the Syrian city of Raqqa, Isis’s de-facto capital, and the jihadis have now lost the vast majority of the territory it once held across Syria and Iraq.
But even as Isis has lost significant strongholds such as Raqqa, experts warn that the terror group remains a lethal force and Mr Trump’s words put him at odds with statements from Rex Tilleron, his recently fired secretary of state.
Mr Tillerson gave a speech earlier this year that advocated a lengthy mission for the US in Syria, not only to prevent the possible return of Isis but also because of the battle for influence in a conflict that involves a number of nations. Russia and Iran have backed the Syrian army of President Bashar al-Assad and the US will be loathe to leave the arena completely. Defence Secretary James Mattis has said that he believes the US should pull out of Syria at some point but has not suggested it should be done quickly.
The US and South Korea announced this week that they had agreed to make changes to their six-year-old trade pact, which Mr Trump had labelled a “horror show”.
South Korea promised to lift existing limits on the number of cars US car makers can export to the country. It also restricts, by almost a third, the amount of steel that South Korea can export to America.
“I may hold it up until after a deal is made with North Korea,” Mr Trump said. “Do you know why? Because it’s a very strong card and I want to make sure everybody is treated fairly and we’re moving along very nicely with South Korea.”
Just before making this threat, Mr Trump called the revisions in the trade agreement a “wonderful” fix that would “level the playing field on steel and cars and trucks coming into this country”.