US troop withdrawal should be done with \'right partners\'\, warns Erdogan

US troop withdrawal should be done with 'right partners', warns Erdogan

ANI  |  Ankara [Afghanistan] 

on Monday warned that US' decision to pull out troops from should be carried out with great precision and only with the "right partners", Al Jazeera reported.

"President Trump made the right call to withdraw from withdrawal, however, must be planned carefully and performed in cooperation with the right partners to protect the interests of the United States, the international community and the Syrian people. Turkey, which has NATO's second largest standing army, is the only country with the power and commitment to perform that task," the Turkish President said.

"In 2016, became the first country to deploy ground combat troops to fight the so-called Islamic State in Syria. Our military incursion severed the group's access to NATO's borders and impeded their ability to carry out terror attacks in and Europe," Erdogan added.

On December 19, the declared that has been defeated in Syria and announced for a sudden withdrawal of 2,000 US troops from the country.

However, officials informed that troop withdrawal will not happen quickly.

"The has knowingly written a very inaccurate story on my intentions on Syria. No different from my original statements, we will be leaving at a proper pace while at the same time continuing to fight and doing all else that is prudent and necessary!..... ," the tweeted on Monday.

Meanwhile, President Trump's John Bolton, who travelled to to reassure the US ally of the Trump-ordered withdrawal, said there was no stipulated time for the pullout of American forces in Syria, but insisted that it was not an "unlimited commitment," Al Jazeera reported.

troops will be pulled out of Syria only after defeating the Islamic States (ISIS) and ensuring that the Kurds are safe, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Tue, January 08 2019. 11:46 IST