U.S. President Donald Trump underscored that the battle between Turkey and the Kurds has been ongoing for centuries, that he maintained nullified Washington’s responsibility for the latest hostilities. President Trump later tweeted that there are three viable options to end the fighting between Washington’s NATO ally and the Syrian Democratic Forces former coalition partners. Those possibilities are to “Send in thousands of troops and win militarily, hit Turkey very hard financially and with sanctions, or mediate a deal between Turkey and the Kurds.” During a later exchange with reporters, Trump voiced his preference for the last possibility, saying “The last thing I want to do is bring thousands and thousands of soldiers in and defeat everybody again.” Adding “We’ve already done that,” Trump said “what we have is really two choices: you have the choice of bringing in the military and defeating everybody again or you have the choice of financially doing some very strong things to Turkey, so that they take it a little bit easy on, really, competition that is–, I don’t think it’s being fairly treated in many ways. Okay?“ After noting “We have a very good relationship with Kurds,” Trump then reiterated his hope to assume a role as mediator.
President Trump went on to mention that “we had a big victory (against ISIL); we left the area. I don’t think the American people want to see us go back in with our military, go back into that area again. We won. We left the area. I don’t think we want to go back in. Let’s see what happens,” before saying “We are going to, possibly, do something very, very tough with respect to sanctions and other financial things.”