Removing troops didn't cause a cease fire. Erdogan got part of what he wanted and has retaken Kurdish occupied territory. He has not agreed to give them back. Anyway, negotiation was possible before there was conflict, and negotiations will continue to be necessary. They're a good thing.
There are still some problems that were avoidable, and a few that are now unavoidable --like the escaped IS fighters, the refugees, and the nukes. However, if the claim is that allowing Turkey to attack was a strategy to force the Kurds to negotiate, well it worked, at little cost to the US. Maybe we should use that strategy with Nkorea and Iran. If we withdraw our troops, it will force the sides to negotiate.
The agreement “ends the violence — which is what President Trump sent us here to do,” Mr. Pence said at a news conference at the ambassador’s residence.
But Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, immediately countered that the agreement was not a cease-fire at all, but merely a “pause for our operation.” He added that “as a result of our president’s skillful leadership, we got what we wanted.”
He noted that the United States accepted the importance of the safe zone to protect Turkey’s legitimate security interests. “It is fully agreed that the safe zone will be under the control of the Turkish Armed Forces,” he said. “Giving a break does not mean to withdraw our forces,” he said. “We will go on being there.”
Posted: Wed Oct 16, 2019 10:26 pm
