Turkey’s president has told his American counterpart, Donald Trump, that Turkey’s “ready to take over the security” of a key northern Syrian town “without losing time.”
A statement from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office says the two leaders spoke on the telephone earlier today about the town of Manbij in Syria.
The fate of the Syrian town, controlled by US-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters whom Turkey considers terrorists, has been a source of tension between Ankara and Washington. Turkey insists on the withdrawal of the Syrian Kurdish militia, which liberated Manbij from the Islamic State group in 2016.
Erdogan also calls last week’s suicide attack in Manbij that killed four Americans a “provocation meant to affect the US decision to withdraw from Syria.”
The statement says Trump and Erdogan agreed their military chiefs would “speed up” consultations about a safe zone in northeastern Syria.
— AP
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