Donald Trump says Turkey was behind Islamist groups that toppled Assad in Syria

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Donald Trump said on Monday that he believed Turkey was behind the rebel group that toppled Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad, claiming Ankara had mounted an “unfriendly takeover” of its neighbour.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was “a smart guy and he’s very tough”, the US president-elect said at a news conference in Florida, and had made Ankara the most important foreign actor in Syria since Assad’s fall.

“They wanted it for thousands of years, and he got it. Those people who went in are controlled by Turkey,” Trump said. “Turkey did an unfriendly takeover without a lot of lives being lost.”

The president-elect’s comments came as the US carried out air strikes against Isis fighters in Syria, and just days after secretary of state Antony Blinken said Washington was in contact with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist group that led a lightning blitz on Damascus earlier this month, forcing Assad to flee the country.

Foreign policy analysts said Trump — who will replace Joe Biden as US president next month — was sending a message to Erdoğan, with whom he has enjoyed a turbulent relationship.

“Trump has issued a warning of sorts to the new rulers of Syria and their patrons, which is ‘rule carefully, because we are watching’,” said Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think-tank.

Turkey’s relations with HTS have been complex. It has not directly backed the group but has supported others that co-ordinated with HTS in its lightning offensive.

“I think Turkey is going to hold the key to Syria,” Trump said.

Trump’s comments about Erdoğan reflected the US president-elect’s tendency to keep world leaders on their toes, a foreign policy expert said.

Erdoğan might have thought Trump would be an “ace in the hole”, said Jon Alterman, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank. But the Turkish leader would be “not sure exactly where he sits” following Trump’s comments, giving the US’s incoming leader leverage.

Trump and Erdoğan fused personal camaraderie and geopolitical friction during the US leader’s first term as president. Tensions escalated over Turkey’s purchase from Russia of the S-400 missile defence system, which ended in Turkey’s ejection from the US’s F-35 fighter jet programme. Ankara’s detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson in 2016 prompted Trump to blacklist Erdoğan advisers and threaten punitive economic sanctions.

Brunson’s release thawed relations between the leaders. Turkey later capitalised on Trump’s 2019 decision to withdraw US forces from northern Syria, leaving Kurdish forces exposed to Turkish military action.

Ties between Washington and Ankara have improved more recently, according to Turkish officials and western diplomats, despite some tension triggered by Erdoğan’s criticism of Israel over its Gaza offensive.

Turkey also eventually backed Sweden’s accession to Nato earlier this year, after which Washington approved Ankara’s purchase of American F-16 fighter jets. American officials have also hailed Turkey’s role in a prisoner exchange between the US and Russia this year and Ankara’s fight against terrorist groups, including Isis.

Turkey has, however, pushed back strongly against Washington’s support for the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led group that Ankara considers indistinguishable from separatists that have battled the Turkish state.

Washington sees the SDF as a crucial partner in keeping Isis from significantly reconstituting in Syria in the political vacuum following Assad’s fall.

The US has been carrying out air strikes in Syria against Isis, including on Monday when US Central Command said strikes killed 12 fighters operating in former regime- and Russian-controlled areas.

Additional reporting by Andrew England in London and Adam Samson in New York