ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — US President Donald Trump ordered the State Department on Friday to freeze more than $200 million in recovery funds.
An unnamed government official told the Wall Street Journal that the US would exit Syria and “let the other people take care of it now.”
Turkish state-run media reported Erdogan and Trump had a phone call on Friday, when they discussed regional and bilateral issues, including Iraq, Syria, and counterterrorism.
The White House did not release an immediate readout of the call.
Trump's administration has budgetarily hamstrung the State Department, while bolstering military spending with a proposed $700 billion budget for 2019.
Outgoing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson promised the funds with anti-ISIS coalition members during a meeting in February at Iraq's Reconstruction Conference in Kuwait.
The WSJ source clarified that the funds were frozen, noting the administration’s apparent policy shifts in the protracted eight-year Syrian conflict.
Trump announced on Thursday that the US will be leaving Syria "very soon" while revealing a $1.5 trillion domestic infrastructure plan in Ohio.
"We are going to have 100 percent of the caliphate, as they call it, sometimes referred to as land ... But we are going to be coming out of there real soon. We are going to get back to our country, where we belong, where we want to be," Trump said.
He added that "other people" can take care of it now.
His comments were seemingly a contradiction of the position of the Department of Defense on the same day.
“We are working with our NATO ally Turkey to reassure them that we understand their security concerns and will appropriately address them as we fight ISIS together,” Pentagon Chief Spokesperson Dana White said. “But we must not become distracted and reduce the pressure on ISIS.
"The Syrian Democratic Forces have repeatedly shown they are the most capable force on the ground to defeat ISIS. We will continue to support the SDF as they continue to fight against ISIS."
The SDF is primarily comprised of the mostly-Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).
As the SDF has liberated cities and areas once under ISIS control, they have worked with US diplomats led by Brett McGurk and locals to set up military and civil councils, as the Syrian regime does not have a presence in the northeast.
Trump's distaste for the State Department was remphasized, when he announced CIA head Mike Pompeo will replace Tillerson after senate confirmation in April.
In an ironic twist, Trump is replacing National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, a retired US army general with John Bolton, a diplomat who briefly served as George W. Bush's Ambassador to the United Nations.
Bolton, as a retired diplomat, has been a regular analyst on conservative Fox News television, regularly criticizing Iranian influence in the Middle East and espousing Trump's "America First" doctrine.
US Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan met with Turkish Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs Umit Yalcin in Washington on Friday. There was no press availability.
Turkish state media reported they discussed Manbij and reasserted a determination to jointly advance on the subject.
US Ambassador Tina Kaidanow, the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, is visiting Turkey and Iraq ahead of the high-level Russia-Iran-Turkey summit in Ankara on Saturday and Sunday.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has expressed that his country wants the US forces to remain.
“We believe American troops should stay for at least the mid-term, if not the long-term,” he told TIME on Thursday in a wide-ranging interview.
Saudi concerns likely center around a growing Shiite influence in the region, where Iran has been accused of working to impose a "Shiite crescent" from Tehran to Baghdad through Damascus and on to Lebanon and the Golan.
“If you take those troops out from east Syria, you will lose that checkpoint,” Salman said, referring to the US-led coalition presence in the Middle Euphrates Valley that connects Iraq's Anbar province to Syria's Deir ez-Zor govenorate. “And this corridor could create a lot of things in the region.”
Last updated at 3:47 p.m.
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