Trump wants troops out of northern Syria, says Robert F Kennedy Jr
Donald Trump wants to remove US troops from northern Syria rather than leaving them as "cannon fodder" if fighting broke out between Turkey and Kurdish fighters, Robert F Kennedy Jr said on Wednesday.
Speaking to Tucker Carlson during a live broadcast covering the US presidential election result, the Trump ally, who is expected to play a major role in his government, said the president-elect had expressed his intentions for northern Syria during a plane journey.
"We were talking about the Middle East, and he took a piece of paper and he drew on it [a] map of the Middle East with all the nations on it, which most Americans couldn't do," he told the right-wing broadcaster.
"He was he was particularly looking at the border between Syria and Turkey, and he said, 'We have 500 men on the border of of Syria and Turkey and a little encampment that was bombed.'"
Kennedy said Trump told him there were 750,000 troops in Turkey and 250,000 in Syria.
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He did not specify if he meant the Syrian army or Syrian Kurdish forces, or some combination of the two.
He said Trump informed him that "If they go up against each other, we're in the middle."
Trump was told by the "generals" that the US troops would be "cannon fodder" if Turkey and the Kurdish forces came to blows.
"And he said, 'Get them out!'" said Kennedy.
A febrile situation?
Trump was re-elected president on Wednesday after easily beating his rival Kamala Harris.
His election has concerned some US allies in the West, who fear that Trump will make a number of substantial foreign policy changes, including reducing support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.
Since 2014, the US has provided support for the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to fight against the Islamic State group (IS).
The YPG, which controls much of northern Syria, is considered an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) by Turkey, which has repeatedly invaded Syria in an attempt to stop the group securing a continuous area of territory along the Syrian-Turkish border.
The Syrian government has also promised to retake all the territory it lost since the beginning of the civil war in 2011, and has clashed with the YPG and Turkish-backed Syrian rebel groups.
The SDF is also holding over 10,000 IS fighters, including 2,000 foreigners whose home countries have refused to repatriate them, in around two dozen detention centres in northeast Syria.
Last year, the US Senate voted to keep American troops in northern Syria.
Supporters of maintaining the US presence say that it is necessary to keep the roughly 900 troops in Syria as part of regional efforts to monitor and counter Iran.
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