President Donald Trump announced Wednesday all sanctions against Turkey would be lifted by Nov. 14, as well as a 20-mile "safe-zone" between Syria and Turkey.
"Let someone else fight over this long bloodstained sand," he announced at the White House, making it clear the U.S. would end its 10-year involvement with Syria, Turkey, and the Kurdish people.
No sooner had Trump made this announcement than Newsmax received an angry text message from someone formerly considered one of the president's biggest boosters among the Kurdish community: Rahim Rashidi, the Kurdistan-24 TV correspondent who drew worldwide attention last year after President Trump nicknamed him "Mr. Kurd" during a press conference.
"President Trump has made a big mistake," Rashidi texted us from somewhere in Syria. "His change of policy has so far created great hardship and pain for the Kurds, and many Kurds have died.
He recalled how "the president has stood with the Kurds in the region and the Kurds stood with America" — in effect, rephrasing Trump's moving words to him last year the Kurds are "great people [who] fought with us, they died for us and with us."
There was a strong relationship between the Kurdish people and the U.S., he said, "only to have the United States now capitulate and step aside, sidestep, to the wishes of Turkey's Erdgoan."
"Mr. Kurd" requested we not report his exact location "for my safety."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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