President Trump met with authoritarian Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan at the White House on Wednesday ignoring calls from Congressional leaders to cancel the meeting.
According to Fox News:
With relations between Washington and Ankara historically strained, President Trump on Wednesday held a high-stakes meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan just weeks after the latter ordered a controversial invasion of northern Syria following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region.
The two leaders were expected to discuss Turkey’s decision to purchase a Russian-made air defense system – even though Turkey is a member of NATO and hosts a U.S. military base – as well as the country’s military actions against Kurds in northern Syria, which have drawn widespread bipartisan condemnation in Congress.
The Turkish offensive followed Trump’s announcement last month that he intended to pull U.S. troops out of Syria — a move that critics have said left Syrian Kurds, long allies of the U.S., vulnerable to slaughter by Turkish forces.
Trump, meanwhile, argued last month that actions by Turkey in Syria were “not our problem” and that the Kurds were not the “angels” that their defenders made them out to be.
Trump has been strongly criticized for his decision to end on-going conflicts but has stayed true to his decision and despite it killed the top two leaders of ISIS.
