Borderality Turkey News Today

What more have we learned and what more can you tell us about the call between president trump and president erdogan. what led up to the move? >> my colleague and i were trying to figure out why this call happened on sunday. we didnt hear much from the u.s. until late sunday evening that the call had even happened. it turns out there was supposed to be a one-on-one meeting with president trump and president erdogan at the u.n. general assembly last month and it didnt happen. president erdogan on...

They are very concerned that president trump is abandoning them, betraying them. they think theyre going to get wiped out. they think there could eminently be a campaign of ethnic cleansing launching by turkey and it will happen after president trump gave turkey the green light. what were focused on right now is this border area between turkey and syria. on one side you have the turkish military -- just today, turkey said that its ready militarily to cross that border whenever it wants to and it...

Ideology. we have millions of kurds living in turkey, syria, iraq. we have good relations with all of them. we have no intention to harm them in any way. our fight is against a terrorist network, just as we fought about daesh and isis, we have to fight against other terrorist networks in syria. let me also underline that this safe zone will in no way affect negatively or diminish the fight against isis. we fought against isis and eliminated more than 3,000 of their tear rivets, and we have captu...

Protection of the american troops. that semi independent bubble, kurdish bubble las made turkey very uncomfortable, and turkey has said time and time again that it wants to go in and either clear out the whole thing or just create a small -- not that small -- safe zone along the northern part of that kurdish enclave. thats what turkey is talking about doing right now. crossing the border and creating a turkish-controlled enclave, a buffer zone in what is now kurdish territory. theyre also talkin...

Officials that ive been speaking with, that he may be making good on that promise, on that threat. what was surprising and caught many people off guard in the pentagon, the state department and certainly the u.s. military in the region was that president trump during this phone call said that he would remove troops from northeastern syria near the border with turkey if president erdogan was going to go forward with this planned military move into turkey. of course, president erdogan, the whole m...

Advisers. until they come up with a strategy or war room, theyre just going to fight. >> jonathan lemire, philippe reines, thank you very much. president trumps latest overture to the president of turkey after he decided to pull out troops out of syria. im going to discuss that and the sunday night phone call behind the troop decision with a top adviser to turkish president erdogan. he joins me next. plus, many congressional republicans are breaking with the president on his syria decision. it...

Kind of a military move into syria, the u.s. is not going to get involved, not going to be in the middle of it. president trump is receiving a lot of pushback including from members of his own party, close allies who are saying this is abandoning the kurdss, the syrian democratic forces the u.s. has been fighting next to for several years. they have been an effective partner and ally providing u.s. military security on the ground in syria during much of that time. but the reality is the administ...

Operations forces and lost around 11,000 of their fighters, men and women, over a four-year campaign against isis. >> so to that point, courtney, the president has faced a lot of criticism over the last couple days from members of liss own party and elsewhere. he defended his decision last night. watch. >> why are you siding with an authoritarian leader and not our kurdish allies? >> well, im not siding with anybody. we have been in syria for many years. syria was supposed to be a short-term hit...