The defense secretary says Trump ordered the almost total withdrawal of troops from northern Syria

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(CNN) - President Donald Trump is ordering that most of the remaining US forces leave northern Syria, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Sunday.

“We have American forces probably caught between two opposing armies that are advancing and it is a very unsustainable situation. Last night I spoke with the president, after discussions with the rest of the national security team, and he ordered that we begin a deliberate withdrawal of forces from northern Syria, ”said Esper on the CBS 'Face the Nation' program. "That is where most of our forces are."

The order comes when Turkish forces are coming further south towards Syria. Last week, the country launched its incursion, a threat made for a long time, after Trump ordered a small contingent of approximately 50 US troops to withdraw from the border area amid the belief that a Turkish incursion was imminent.

Esper initially did not make it completely clear whether the withdrawal would mean that US troops would leave Syria altogether or move to another place in the country far from where Turkish forces operate. The Pentagon did not respond to CNN's request on Sunday for clarification on the withdrawal of troops.

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While most of the 1,000 US soldiers in Syria are in the northern part of the country, the US military also maintains a small presence in southern Syria, at a base in At Tanf where the United States trains local anti-ISIS fighters who They are not affiliated with the Syrian democratic forces.

An American official familiar with the situation on the ground said earlier this Sunday that US forces in Syria are preparing to withdraw from the country.

The official said that the situation on the ground is deteriorating rapidly in northeastern Syria, adding that the Turkish representatives, which the official describes as "extremists," have advanced along the strategically important M4 highway, which establishes Multiple control points He says that these power forces wear SDF uniforms and are killing civilians on the road. US forces and SDF troops no longer control land lines of communication and have no control over Turkish planes overhead.

"The US forces are at risk of being isolated and there is a greater risk of confrontation between the Turkish representatives and the US forces unless Turkey halts its progress immediately," says the official.

Situation in Syria

Before the Turkish offensive last week, as a measure of building confidence with the country, the United States convinced the Syrian Kurds to dismantle their defensive fortifications along the border and push back their fighters. The United States said Turkey had accepted the agreement that sought to avoid unilateral Turkish military action. Trump caused the Pentagon to withdraw US troops along that part of the border.

While Kurdish officials and Republican and Democratic lawmakers have argued that the pullback helped provide a de facto green light for the Turkish attack, senior members of the Trump administration have insisted that Turkey would have invaded regardless of whether U.S. troops would they were left and that the United States did not abandon the Syrian Kurds. However, the United States government has not yet taken steps to stop the Turkish incursion.

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Esper said Friday that the United States is not abandoning its Kurdish allies, although it made it clear that the US military will not intervene in the fight.

"We are not abandoning our Kurdish partner forces and US troops remain with them in other parts of Syria," Esper told reporters at the Pentagon.

“We remain in close coordination with the Syrian Democratic Forces that helped us destroy the ISIS caliphate, but I will not place the members of the US service in the midst of a long-standing conflict between the Turks and the Kurds, that is not why we are in Syria, ”said Esper.

Trump signed an executive order on Friday giving the Treasury Department "very important new sanctions authorities" against Turkey for its actions in Syria, but the United States has no immediate plan to use them, said Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin.

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The Treasury statement had said that Trump's threat of sanctions was intended to deter Turkey from actions that included "the indiscriminate attack of civilians, the attack of civil infrastructure, the attack of ethnic or religious minorities."

As the situation in Syria deteriorates, Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday that he is working with Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, and unidentified Democrats to impose "powerful sanctions" on Turkey.

Devan Cole of CNN contributed to this report.

War in Syria