US Should Protect Turkey From Syrian Kurds, Slow Troop Exit: Senator Graham

US Senator Lindsey Graham has urged Washington to protect Turkey from the threats posed by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) acting in northern Syria, the Turkish state-owned Anadolu news agency reports.

Graham said that he does not rule out US Chief of Staff Joseph Dunford and Ankara are jointly hammering out a plan to move YPG forces away from the Turkish border.

He claimed that by arming the YPG in Syria, Washington “created a nightmare for Turkey”, adding that the political arm of the YPG, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), may be “clearly” linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), blacklisted by Ankara as a terrorist organisation.

Ankara has repeatedly blamed Washington for lending military support to the YPG, while Washington insists its backing of the Kurds is needed to counter Daesh. In February 2018, then-US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson claimed that Washington has “never given heavy arms to the YPG”.

“A withdrawal that does not outline the points I have made will not end the war against ISIS [Daesh], it will start a new war. This war will be a necessity by Turkey, to go into Syria and clear out armed elements that Turkey believes poses a threat to its sovereignty,” Graham claimed.

In this vein, he expressed hope that President Donald Trump would slow the US troops’ pullout from Syria until Daesh is destroyed.

Daesh Not Defeated?

Graham’s comments came after CNN cited sources familiar with the matter as saying that during US President Donald Trump’s surprise visit to Iraq on 26 December, military commanders warned him that Daesh has not entirely been defeated in Syria despite his previous claims to the contrary.

According to the sources, the commanders told the US president that pockets of Daesh terrorists “remained in the Euphrates River valley and that US military had not yet eliminated all of their strongholds”. This was described as “eye-opening” for Trump by the sources.

Earlier this week, Vice President Mike Pence also claimed that Daesh had indeed been defeated, adding that the US is “now able to hand off the fight against ISIS [Daesh] to our coalition partners” after the group’s caliphate “crumbled”.