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He also falsely claimed the Kurds “are much safer now,” despite his recent decision to pull US forces out of northern Syria — where the US was fighting alongside Kurds in the region.
“Our soldiers are not in harm’s way, as they shouldn’t be, as two countries fight over land that has nothing to do with us. And the Kurds are much safer now. The Kurds know how to fight and as I said, they’re not angels,” Trump said during an Oval Office meeting with Italian President Sergio Mattarella.
“But they fought with us. We paid a lot of money for them to fight with us and that’s OK. They did well when they fought with us. They didn’t do so well when they didn’t fight with us,” he added.
Trump continued to defend withdrawing troops from northeastern Syria, saying that sanctions on Turkey are more effective at maintaining stability between the Turks and Kurds.
Trump also cited Kurds leaving US forces fighting against Iraq when the US did not fund them.
“The Kurds are actually pulling back substantially from Turkey and Syria’s pulling in,” he added.
He also said that Russian support in Syria is “fine” with him, adding that Russia can handle the battle against ISIS there.
“Syria will probably have a partner of Russia … I wish them a lot of luck,” Trump said.
“If Russia wants to get involved with Syria — that’s really up to them,” he added. “They have a problem with Turkey, they have a problem at the border — it’s not our border. We shouldn’t be losing lives over it.”
“By the way, every player hates ISIS … Syria more than us. Russia more than us. They’ve done a big number on Russia. And we’re over there fighting ISIS. But they’re over there fighting ISIS too. They can handle it. And they should handle it. We can fight our own battles on our own territories,” he later added.
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