Clip shows that Trump had a very different opinion of the Kurds just 12 months ago

Donald Trump's recent decision to withdraw US troops from north Syria that prompted a Turkish assault on the Kurds has seen the US president completely backtrack on his previous statements on the former US allies.

After celebrating agreeing upon a five-day ceasefire with Turkey after it brutally carved out a "safe zone" in Syria, killing at least 218 civilians and displacing more than 300,000 people, the US president said:

On behalf of the United States, I want to thank Turkey, I want to thank all of the people that have gotten together and made this happen. This is an incredible outcome.

So you have a 22-mile strip, that for many, many years, Turkey, in all fairness, they’ve had a legitimate problem with it, they had terrorists, they had a lot of people in their that they couldn’t have.

They’ve suffered a lot of loss of lives also, and they had to have it cleaned out. But once you start that it gets to be to a point where a tremendous amount of bad things can happen.

The statement has seen Trump criticised and accused of employing the 'language of ethnic cleansing'.

Turkey considers the Kurds - who were integral in helping the US defeat Isis - as terrorists and has long persecuted their people after centuries of conflict.

While the Kurdish forces have sought to distance themselves from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (KPP), a separatist group that has previously killed civilians, Mr Trump said the Kurds were "not angels" and equated the two parties, claiming:

Now the PKK, which is part of the Kurds, as you know, is probably worse at terror, and more of a terrorist threat in many ways than ISIS,

While the US president now appears happy to equate the Kurds with terrorism and describe them with "the language of ethnic cleansing", he didn't always feel this way.

In 2018, the US president was quick to praise the Kurds, saying:

We do get along great with the Kurds, we’re trying to help them a lot. They’re very well protected.

Don’t forget, that’s their territory. We have to help them, I want to help them.

They fought with us. They died with us. We lost tens of thousands of Kurds – died fighting Isis.

But in one fell swoop, against the overwhelming advice of his military advisers, Mr Trump decided to pave the way for their slaughter.

What changed, Donald??

HT: Daily Dot

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