On Monday, when American troops left Kurdish controlled areas in northern Syria, they were pelted with food by angry civilians. President Donald Trump has defended his decision to pull troops out of Syria amid cries from critics that the move was a betrayal that left the Kurdish people vulnerable to attacks from the Turkish government.
Last week, Trump told reporters that the conflict between the Kurds and the Turkish government “ has nothing to do with us.”
WGBH News Analyst Charlie Sennott said during an interview with Boston Public Radio on Monday that Trump’s pulling out of Syria is both a strategic and moral failure. The Turkish incursion into Syria, and ensuing drawback of Kurdish forces, has left Kurdish prisons holding ISIS soldiers abandoned, he said.
“You had the Kurds locking them up in prisons, and now those prisons are unattended because the U.S. has withdrawn,” Sennott said. “Now those prisons will literally have the doors thrown open, and you’re going to have ISIS right back out on those streets. It’s a really horrifying prospect.”
Sennott’s other concern is that the Turkish government’s offensive against the Kurds may amount to ethnic cleansing, and in pulling back forces, Trump is allowing it to happen.
“That is what Turkey is trying to do along the border. To cleanse the Kurdish areas, and to clear them out to put all of these Kurds in a place where they can keep an eye on them, essentially,” Sennott said. “That is ethnic cleansing, and it would not be the first time that it happened in that border area.”
