WASHINGTON — Kurdish groups in Syria are expressing hope for continued support from the United States as President Donald Trump begins his second term in office.
Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have been a key U.S. partner in the fight against the Islamic State terror group, also known as IS or ISIS. Supported by a U.S.-led global coalition, the SDF runs a large territory once controlled by IS in northeastern Syria.
Mazloum Abdi, general commander of the SDF, congratulated Trump on Monday after he was sworn in.
The U.S. has about 2,000 troops in Syria as part of the anti-IS mission, according to the Pentagon.
“We look forward to continuing cooperation in achieving stability, defeating terrorism, and supporting peace in Northeast Syria,” Abdi said in a post on the social media platform X.
Following the fall of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad last month, U.S.-backed Kurdish forces have been under mounting pressure by both the new authorities in Damascus and the Turkish government to disarm.
Turkish-backed Syrian armed groups also have been in daily clashes with the SDF in parts of northern Syria. Ankara views the SDF as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, considered to be a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union.
The U.S. has about 2,000 troops in Syria as part of the anti-IS mission, according to the Pentagon.
Asked during a Jan. 7 press conference whether he would keep the same troop capacity in Syria, Trump said he wouldn’t comment on a military strategy.
With regards to tensions between the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian Kurds, Trump said he is friends with Erdogan.
“He’s a guy I like and respect. I think he respects me also,” Trump said during the same press conference.
“He’s the one that didn’t go after certain people after I requested that he not, you know what I’m talking about, the Kurds. I don’t know how long that’s going to [hold] because they’re natural enemies. They hate each other, but he didn’t do that yet, and he didn’t do it in the past also. He started, and I said please don’t do that, and he didn’t do it,” Trump added.
Trump was referring to discussions he had with the Turkish president in 2019 during the former’s first term in office. Following a partial U.S. troop withdrawal from northeast Syria in October 2019, the Turkish military and their Syrian proxies carried out a major ground offensive against Syrian Kurdish forces. Turkey ended its campaign after several ceasefire agreements brokered separately by the U.S. and Russia.
“We need to recognize that there are implications to abandoning partners who have a great sacrifice and threat, actually jailed the ISIS fighters.”
Newly appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio said during his Senate confirmation hearing last week that it was important to continue supporting Syrian Kurdish forces.
“We need to recognize that there are implications to abandoning partners who have a great sacrifice and threat, actually jailed the ISIS fighters,” Rubio said, referring to the thousands of IS foreign fighters who are held in Kurdish-run prisons and camps in northeast Syria.
“One of the reasons why we were able to dismantle ISIS, because they [Syrian Kurds] were willing to host them in jails, a great personal threat to them, and obviously that situation is very tenuous,” he said.
Rubio noted that it was in the U.S. national interest “to have a Syria that is no longer a playground for ISIS, that respects religious minorities, ranging from Alawites all the way to Christians, that protects the Kurds, and at the same time it is not a vehicle through which Iran can spread its terrorism to Hezbollah and destabilize Lebanon.”
The new authorities in Syria are led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group that is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
Some experts, like Brussels-based Kurdish affairs analyst Hosheng Ossi, argue that the U.S. and its regional partners, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, should view the SDF and Syrian Kurds as a strategic safeguard to prevent Syria from being entirely controlled by a radical group like the HTS.
“Washington has invested in the SDF for more than a decade, and it would be a strategic blunder to let the SDF in the eastern Euphrates area face an enemy that is even more dangerous than Daesh,” Ossi told VOA, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
The new authorities in Syria are led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group that is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
He said for the Trump administration to have a successful approach toward the Kurdish situation in Syria, it “could seriously and firmly seek to separate the SDF from the PKK.”
Suleyman Ozeren, a professorial lecturer at American University in Washington, said the U.S. remains the only viable mediator between Turkey and the SDF.
“If President Trump intends to fully withdraw from Syria, he may need to apply pressure on both Turkey and the SDF to find a resolution,” he told VOA. “However, the SDF will likely face significant pressure to make concessions, while Ankara may achieve favorable compromises.”
“Any agreement would also need to involve HTS, which presents both an opportunity and a challenge for Ankara, as HTS itself seeks improved relations with the United States,” he said.
This story originated in VOA’s Kurdish service.
