Trump Sees Turkey as Key Player Shaping Syria’s Future After Assad’s Fall

(Bloomberg) -- US President-elect Donald Trump said Turkey will play a significant role in the future of Syria following the downfall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, while also praising Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his military.

“I believe it’s Turkey,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, when commenting on which foreign powers will have influence over Syria’s future. “Nobody knows what the final outcome is going to be in the region.”

He said Erdogan was “a very smart guy” and had a “major military force.”

The incoming US president also said Turkey was involved in Assad regime’s collapse, supporting Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, the Islamist group that led a lightning assault on Damascus earlier this month. Turkey carried out an “unfriendly takeover without a lot of lives lost” in Syria, he said. The US and Turkey, as well as the United Nations, list HTS as a terrorist group, though they’ve all established communication with it since Assad was toppled.

Ankara has denied involvement in the regime’s collapse but remains a key player vying for influence in Syria, along with Israel and the US. Turkish officials hope for better cooperation in the region with the US, a NATO ally, under Trump.

The US has long relied on the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, as its primary partner against Islamic State, despite strong objections from Turkey. The Kurdish YPG forces, which Turkey sees as an extension of the outlawed militant group PKK, are one of the main SDF factions. While Washington also lists the PKK, which has waged a decades-long armed campaign against the Turkish state in the country’s southeast, as a terror organization, it differs on the YPG.

Since Assad’s fall, clashes have persisted between the SDF and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. Turkey seeks the disarmament of the YPG and the departure of its foreign members from Syria. Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler said Saturday that Syria’s new government shares Ankara’s view on dismantling Kurdish military forces.