Report: Trump administration officials didn't think Turkey would ever invade Syria

Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

After hearing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threaten for two years to launch an assault against the Kurds in Syria, President Trump and senior administration officials did not think he would ever go through with it, six people with knowledge of the matter told Axios' Jonathan Swan.

Their discussions started in 2017, with Erdogan telling Trump the Kurds, who control northeastern Syria, are a threat to Turkey and need to be away from the border. Whenever he would say this, Axios reports, Trump would let Erdogan know that if he did invade, he would have to be solely responsible for whatever happened. During one conversation, Trump conveyed that Erdogan shouldn't mess with U.S. troops in Syria, but intimated that they wouldn't be there much longer and would not stay around to help the Kurds, people with knowledge of the matter told Axios.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.