Trump says Türkiye ‘very smart,’ hails relationship with Turkish president

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - US President-elect Donald Trump said Türkiye is "very smart" Monday as he hailed his personal relationship with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"Turkey is a major force, by the way, and Erdogan is somebody I got along with great but he has a major military force. And his has not been worn out with war," Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate. "He's built a very strong, powerful army."

Trump demurred when asked if he would withdraw American troops from northeastern Syria, but said Erdogan is "a very smart guy."

"I think Turkey is very smart. He's a very smart guy and very tough, but Turkey did an unfriendly takeover without a lot of lives being lost. I can say that Assad was a butcher, here, what he did to children," he added, referring to ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Trump said “nobody knows” what future lies ahead for post-Assad Syria, but said he thinks “Turkey is going to hold the key to” the nation.

“Actually, I don't think you've heard that from anybody else, but I've been pretty good at predicting,” he said.

Numerous foreign policy analysts and commentators have said Türkiye emerged with a stronger hand from the recent events in Syria.

In Syria, the US has long partnered with the SDF as its primary anti-Daesh/ISIS partner, over strenuous objections from Türkiye. The group is led by the YPG, the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, a designated terrorist group in the US and Türkiye. Washington's support for the SDF has greatly exacerbated tensions in bilateral relations between the NATO allies.

Since Assad’s fall, clashes have been ongoing between the SDF and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army.