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US using Turks as de facto mercenaries in Syria: Analyst

Political analyst Keith Preston

The United States is using “the Turks as de facto mercenaries” in Syria in order to continue Washington's destabilization effort in the war-torn country, an analyst says.

Keith Preston made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Sunday when asked about US President Donald Trump who had defended his decision to pull American forces out of northern Syria.

Days after the US had withdrawn its forces and abandoned its Kurdish allies in the area, Turkey launched its military campaign there which Ankara says is meant to purge the Syrian region of YPG militants. Turkey views YPG militants as terrorists linked to local autonomy-seeking militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

On Saturday, Trump said that it was time to stop US soldiers’ participation in an “endless war.”

“I don’t think our soldiers should be there for the next 50 years guarding a border between Turkey and Syria when we can’t guard our own borders at home,” Trump told a crowd of evangelicals.

Preston said that “many people seem to have misunderstood what Trump is actually doing with this latest Syria policy.”

“Trump is not trying to wind down the Syrian war or US involvement in the Syrian war per se, as much as he’s trying to farm out the war effort to the Turks, essentially the Americans are now trying to use the Turks as de facto mercenaries in the Syrian war for the purpose of continuing to destabilize Syria.”

He went on to say that “from Trump’s perspective, we have to remember that he ran for office promising to wind down some of these wars that the United States has been involved in for years now, those wars have become extremely unpopular and his reelection is coming up next year, so Trump has to make it look like that he has made progress in terms of winding these wars down.”

“However, the American elites, the spectrum of power elites in the United States technically are opposed to winding down any of these wars,” the analyst said, adding, so “Trump has made a deal with the foreign policy establishment of the United States where American troops are going to be pulled back slightly.”

The offensive is Turkey's third such military operation inside Syria against the Kurds since 2016. It has sparked widespread condemnations as well as concerns about the humanitarian situation of the civilian population and a possible resurgence of the Daesh terrorist group.


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