It was apparently a scandal on Wednesday at a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Turkish head of state Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House to underline his view that the Kurdish YPG militia allied with the US were terrorists , Erdogan showed a video on a brought iPad.
US media now report that present US Senators of the Republicans are said to have reacted irritated. An unnamed Republican told CNN that Erdogan's film was "absurd" and "pure propaganda." First, the website Axios had reported about it.
The meeting took 90 minutes according to CNN. Several Republican senators present had heatedly debated Erdogan before and after. According to the source, Trump has rather been referred to as a "traffic cop".
Senator Lindsay Graham in particular is said to have clashed with Erdogan after the film screening. According to an anonymous source quoted by Axios, Graham Erdogan is said to have asked, "Shall I go to the Kurds and ask them to produce a video of what you have done?"
On Axios demand, Graham confirmed that Erdogan had come to a confrontation. "The Turkish narrative that they have contributed more to the destruction of the" Islamic state "(than the Kurds"), I energetically rejected. And I let Turkey know that 10,000 SDF fighters, mostly Kurds, have suffered in the fight against IS, have been injured and died and that America will not forget that and will not let them down. "
In addition to Graham, according to CNN, Senators Jim Risch, Ted Cruz, Joni Ernst and Rick Scott attended the meeting. Politically, the relationship between the US and NATO partner Turkey is heavily burdened by the Kurdish question and the purchase of a Russian weapon system.
After the US recalled most of its northern Syrian troops in early October, the Turkish army launched an offensive in northern Syria. Their goal was to push Kurdish YPG forces out of a corridor along the Turkish-Syrian border. The Kurds in Syria then accused the United States, for which they had fought lucratively against the IS, that Washington had abandoned them.
Another dispute between Ankara and Washington: Turkey buys from Russia the missile defense system S-400, an extraordinary step for a NATO state. The US had excluded Turkey in response to the development of the new fighter jets F-35 and wants to deliver security reasons, the aircraft also no longer to the Turks.
