{"id":185385,"date":"2019-03-18T09:03:33","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T09:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=185385"},"modified":"2019-03-21T07:22:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T07:22:00","slug":"us-to-keep-1000-troops-in-syria-despite-trumps-full-withdrawal-plan-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=185385","title":{"rendered":"US to keep 1,000 troops in Syria despite Trump\u2019s full withdrawal plan: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Press TV \u2013 March 18, 2019<\/strong><\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The US plans to keep about 1,000 troops in Syria, despite an earlier announcement by President Donald Trump to completely withdraw them from the Arab country, the Wall Street Journal<\/span><\/a> has reported.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The reversal comes after talks\u00a0with Turkey as well as\u00a0US-backed Kurdish forces and European allies failed to produce an agreement on a \u201csafe zone\u201d in northeast Syria where terrorists are based in their last bastion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump has suggested the creation of a 30-kilometer safe zone along Turkey\u2019s border with Syria, but has not specified who would create, enforce or pay for it, or where it would be located.<\/span><\/p>\n

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned<\/a><\/strong><\/span> the United States and allies operating along the Syria border that any safe zone in\u00a0the area should be under Ankara\u2019s control.<\/span><\/p>\n

Citing American officials, the Journal on Sunday said the US now plans to keep working with Kurdish militants\u00a0in Syria, despite Turkish threats to launch an offensive against them. The proposal, the report said, may keep up to 1,000 US\u00a0forces spread across Syria.<\/span><\/p>\n

The evolving discussions represent a shift away from Trump\u2019s decision to withdraw all American troops from Syria, the newspaper said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump announced his decision to withdraw all 2,000 US troops from northeastern Syria on December 19. The\u00a0decision shocked allies and top US officials who see the withdrawal a victory for the Syrian government.<\/span><\/p>\n

The pullout was initially supposed to be completed within weeks, but it slowed down as opponents of the pullout frantically\u00a0lobbied for troops to stay.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last month, the White House announced that around 200 American troops would\u00a0remain in Syria on a \u201cpeacekeeping\u201d mission.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Journal said members of Trump’s\u00a0national security team had urged him to secure assurances that Turkey wouldn\u2019t attack US-backed militants once American troops pulled out.<\/span><\/p>\n

The US denied the new report, saying plans for a residual force of around 200 troops had not changed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA claim reported this evening by a major US newspaper that the US military is developing plans to keep nearly 1,000 US troops in Syria is factually incorrect,\u201d General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been no change to the plan announced in February and we continue to implement the President\u2019s direction to draw down US forces to a residual presence,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dunford also said the US was continuing to \u201cconduct detailed military planning with the Turkish General Staff to address Turkish security concerns along the Turkey-Syria border.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Turkey considers US-backed YPG militants a terrorist organization and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK), which has been fighting for an autonomous region inside Turkey since 1984.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Turkish military\u00a0launched two cross-border operations in northern Syria, the first dubbed \u201cEuphrates Shield\u201d in August 2016 and the second code-named \u201cOlive Branch\u201d in January 2018 with the alleged\u00a0aim of keeping Kurdish militants at bay.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has denied the report, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal. But given the lack of certainty over U.S. policy in Syria it is entirely plausible <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-syria"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=185385"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185389,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185385\/revisions\/185389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=185385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=185385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=185385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}