Taking a tough tone with his Turkish counterpart, Trump “urged
Turkey to de-escalate, limit its military actions, and avoid civilian casualties and increases to displaced persons and refugees.”
In a sign of deteriorating relations between the two NATO allies, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported that the official
US summary “differ(ed) from the truth discussed between the Turkish and
US Presidents’ phone conversation.”
A message sent to journalists from an unnamed Turkish government official also refuted
US accounts.
“President Trump did not share any ‘concerns about escalating violence’ with regard to the ongoing military operation in Afrin,” read the message. “The two leaders’ discussion of Operation Olive Branch was limited to an exchange of views.”
Speaking prior to the two leaders’ conversation Tuesday, the former
US ambassador to
Turkey, Eric Edelman, said the currents running through Turkish domestic politics are tightly intertwined with perceptions of the US.
“The relationship between the
US and
Turkey has been very tense for a very long time,” Edelman told CNN. “Those tensions in some way are rooted in the nature of the regime that Erdogan is attempting to impose on
Turkey, which to some degree is fueled by anti-Americanism.”
Turkey’s ongoing air and ground strikes in the northern Syrian city of Afrin have predominately targeted Kurdish YPG fighters. The group, which is trained and armed by the
US, is viewed by
Ankara as a terrorist organization.
Turkey sees the quest by the Kurds — who are spread out in
Turkey,
Syria and
Iraq — to establish an independent homeland as an existential threat to its territorial integrity and has long warned that it will not tolerate control of much of its border with
Syria by the YPG.
Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told CNN Tuesday that “(Turkey) had to take (military) action to protect our border.”
“This is not an operation against the Kurds of Afrin or Syria. This is an operation against a terrorist network that claims to represent the Kurds, which is far from the truth,” he said.
Turkey’s military operations, now entering into their fifth day, have involved up to 13,000 fighters, according to estimates provided by rebel groups supporting the Turkish offensive.
Ankara said it gave both
Moscow and
Washington advance notice of its intentions.
Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad has denounced the offensive, calling it “Turkish brutal aggression on the Syrian city of Afrin,” according to the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency.
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