The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir

by John Bolton

On December 14, Trump and Erdogan spoke by phone. I briefed Trump beforehand on the situation in Syria, and he said, “We should get the hell out of there,” which I feared he would also say directly to Erdogan. Trump started by saying we were getting very close to a resolution on Halkbank. He had just spoken to Mnuchin and Pompeo, and said we would be dealing with Erdogan’s great son-in-law (Turkey’s Finance Minister) to get it off his shoulders. Erdogan was very grateful, speaking in English no less. Then he switched to Syria. He said Trump knew Turkey’s expectations regarding the YPG (a Syrian Kurdish militia, part of the Opposition Syrian Defense Forces) and the FETO (Gulenist) terrorist network, which Erdogan characterized as threats to Turkish national security which were poisoning bilateral relations between Washington and Ankara. Nonetheless, whined Erdogan, contrary to fact, America was continuing to train YPG forces, including up to 30–40,000 new recruits. He complained of the discrepancy between Trump’s political will and US military activities on the ground, which were causing questions in his mind. Turkey, said Erdogan, wanted to get rid of ISIS and the PKK, although, in my view, by “PKK” he was really referring to Kurdish fighters generally.