President Trump on Thursday hailed the cease-fire the US brokered with Turkey, crediting his own “rough love” with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the breakthrough.
“You would have lost millions and millions of lives. They couldn’t get it without a little rough love, as I called it. I just put out, they needed a little bit of that at the beginning. And then everybody said, wow, this is tougher than we thought,” he said from Fort Worth, Texas.
Trump said he believed the sanctions the US imposed on Turkey and his “unconventional” approach to negotiating paved the way for the temporary ceasefire.
“Obviously, the sanctions and tariffs were going to be very biting. I’m glad you don’t have to do it. We’ll take them off quickly, as soon as this is finalized, but this is an incredible outcome. This outcome is something they’ve been trying to get for 10 years, everybody, and they couldn’t get it,” Trump said.
“Other administrations, and they never would have been able to get it unless you went somewhat unconventional. I guess I’m an unconventional person.”
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu contradicted US Vice President Mike Pence’s description of the deal as a “cease-fire” minutes after it was announced, saying there was no cease-fire, just a 5-day pause in its operation.
“We got what we wanted. Pause in Turkey’s operation in Syria is not a cease-fire, cease-fire can only happen between two legitimate sides,” he said.
“We agree on collecting YPG heavy weapons, destroying their positions, fortifications. Within 120 hours YPG/PKK will leave the zone, its not a stop in the operation, its a pause. We will stop the operation when all the terrorists will leave the safe zone.”
Claiming the safe zone will be under the control of Turkish forces, Cavusoglu said: “This means that the US has approved the legitimacy of our operations and aims.”
Turkish officials said: “We will pause but not halt the Operation Peace Spring for 120 hours to allow the PKK/YPG forces to withdraw.”
Cavusoglu said the cease-fire agreement also includes the disarmament of the YPG and the destruction of the group’s bases.
“Taking away the weapons in their hands is not enough. It includes the destruction of their fighting positions to an unusable level, to the destruction of their fortifications.”
And Aldar Khalil, a member of the Kurdish administration’s ruling TEV-DEM party, said they had previously rejected calls to withdraw 20 miles from the border, the Kurdish news website Rudaw reported.
“The resistance of our forces and people forced the conspirators to [announce] a cease-fire,” he said.
The YPG has yet to issue a formal statement on the deal.
But the president predicted a positive outcome for all parties involved and said that ISIS detainees would be under strict control to prevent further escapes, though it was unclear who would be responsible for them.
“We have a five-day cease-fire, during that five days, the Kurds and other people that can be taken great care of, they’ll be moving around, moving out of a safe zone, something Turkey has always wanted.
“The ISIS, those fighters we captured will be under very, very strict control of various different groups, but we will be watching, we will be in charge and they’ll be under very, very powerful and strict control,” he said.
“And we’ve gotten everything we could have ever dreamed of, and we’re also going to be able to bring our people back home, but we’ll be able to have control of ISIS, total,” he declared.
And he also said the Kurds had bought into the deal, though they were not part of the negotiations.
“I want to thank the Kurds, because they were incredibly happy with this solution. This is a solution that really — well it saved their lives, frankly. It saved their lives. so we’ve done a great thing for our partner. If we didn’t go this unconventional tough love approach you could have never gotten it done,” he said.
