JERUSALEM -- President Donald Trump's national security adviser said Sunday that the American military withdrawal from northeastern Syria is conditioned on defeating the remnants of the Islamic State group and on Turkey assuring the safety of U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters.
John Bolton said there is no timetable for the pullout but insisted the military presence is not an unlimited commitment.
"There are objectives that we want to accomplish that condition the withdrawal," Bolton told reporters in Jerusalem before heading to Turkey today, where he will be joined by the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford. "The timetable flows from the policy decisions that we need to implement."
Those conditions, he said, included defeating what's left of the Islamic State in Syria and protecting Kurdish militias that have fought alongside U.S. troops against the extremist group.
Bolton's comments were the first public confirmation that the drawdown has been slowed. Trump had faced widespread criticism from allies about his decision, announced in mid-December, that he was pulling all 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria. Officials said at the time that although many details of the withdrawal had not yet been finalized, they expected American forces to be out by mid-January.
"We're pulling out of Syria," Trump said Sunday at the White House. "But we're doing it and we won't be finally pulled out until ISIS is gone."
Trump announced the withdrawal via Twitter on Dec. 19.
"Our boys, our young women, our men, they're all coming back and they're coming back now. We won," Trump said at the time.
Bolton's comments come amid reports that Trump had agreed to extend his initial 30-day deadline for withdrawal to four months. When asked whether Bolton's comments would affect that timeline, a senior administration official said that "there is no specific timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, and reports to the contrary are false."
In a Sunday news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Bolton said that "the defense of Israel and other friends in the region is absolutely assured" and that the United States would "take care of those who have fought with us against ISIS and other terrorist groups."
He also said that the withdrawal would take place but "in a way to make sure ISIS is defeated and is not able to revive itself and become a threat again."
WAR REPORTS
According to reports Sunday, a missile attack by the Islamic State group in eastern Syria killed at least one Kurdish fighter and wounded two British soldiers embedded with them amid fighting in the strategic area near the Iraqi border.
A Kurdish-led force announced, meanwhile, that its fighters had captured five foreign jihadis while combating the Islamic State in eastern Syria. A spokesman for the group, Mustafa Bali, said they included two Americans, two Pakistanis and one Irish citizen.
The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces are believed to be holding hundreds of Islamic State foreign fighters in detention centers in northern Syria, as well as their families in camps in the north. Their governments have said they are not willing to take them back.
The Kurdish-run Rudaw news agency said the two British soldiers wounded in Deir el-Zour were in stable condition.
British special forces are known to be on the ground in northern Syria, although the British government does not provide details about their presence. There was no immediate confirmation or comment from the United Kingdom.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that monitors the Syrian civil war, said in a report Sunday that the Islamic State attack occurred the previous day in the village of Shaafa in eastern Deir el-Zour province amid fierce clashes between the Kurdish-led forces and Islamic State militants.
It said a Kurdish fighter was killed and three were wounded, including the two British soldiers who were airlifted by the coalition for treatment.
WORD ON KURDS
The withdrawal announcement, which led to the resignation of U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, has raised fears over clearing the way for a Turkish assault on the Kurdish fighters. Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, a terrorist group linked to an insurgency within its own borders.
Bolton said Sunday that the U.S. is insisting that its Kurdish allies in Syria are protected from any planned Turkish offensive -- a warning he was expected to deliver to Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, this week.
"We don't think the Turks ought to undertake military action that's not fully coordinated with and agreed to by the United States," Bolton said. He said that in upcoming meetings with Turkish officials he will seek "to find out what their objectives and capabilities are and that remains uncertain."
Trump has made clear that he would not allow Turkey to kill the Kurds, Bolton said. "That's what the president said, the ones that fought with us."
Bolton said the U.S. has asked the Kurds to "stand fast now" and refrain from seeking protection from Russia or Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government. "I think they know who their friends are," he added, speaking of the Kurds.
Jim Jeffrey, the special representative for Syrian engagement and the newly named American special envoy for the anti-Islamic State coalition, is to travel to Syria this week in an effort to reassure the Kurdish fighters that they are not being abandoned, Bolton said.
Turkey's presidential spokesman called allegations that his country planned to attack the U.S.-allied Kurds in Syria "irrational" and said Turkey was fighting terrorism for national security.
In comments carried by the official Anadolu news agency, Ibrahim Kalin said the Kurdish fighters oppressed Syrian Kurds and pursued a separatist agenda under the guise of fighting the Islamic State group. "That a terror organization cannot be allied with the U.S. is self-evident," he said.
U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, the incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told ABC's This Week that the conditions raised by Bolton were "obvious," and Smith criticized the conflicting messages from the Trump administration.
"We don't want ISIS to rise again and be a transnational terrorist threat and we don't want our allies, the Kurds, to be slaughtered by Erdogan in Turkey," said Smith, D-Wash.
Smith added, "I'm pleased that John Bolton has recognized the national security interest, and that's what we want to have ... not a tweet going 'Eh, let's get out of Syria.'"
Bolton said U.S. troops would remain at the critical area of al-Tanf, in southern Syria, to counter growing Iranian activity in the region. He defended the legal basis for the deployment, saying it's justified by the president's constitutional authority.
The U.S. is also seeking a "satisfactory disposition" for roughly 800 Islamic State prisoners held by the U.S.-backed Syrian opposition, Bolton said, adding talks were ongoing with European and regional partners about the issue.
Bolton was to have dinner with Netanyahu on Sunday to discuss the pace of the U.S. drawdown, American troop levels in the region, and the U.S. commitment to push back on Iranian regional expansionism.
Bolton was expected to explain that some U.S. troops based in Syria to fight the Islamic State group will shift to Iraq with the same mission.
Bolton also was to convey the message that the United States is "very supportive" of Israeli strikes against Iranian targets in Syria, according to a senior administration official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss Bolton's plans before the meetings and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Bolton on Sunday also toured the ancient tunnels beneath the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City. He watched a virtual reality tour of the historic site and dined there with his Israeli equivalent, as well as U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer.
Visiting American officials typically avoid holding official meetings in parts of east Jerusalem, which is contested between Israelis and Palestinians. Trump also toured the area in a previous visit.
Israel annexed east Jerusalem after capturing it from Jordan in the 1967 war, a move not recognized by most of the international community. Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Information for this article was contributed by Zeke Miller, Zeynep Bilginsoy, Catherine Lucey and staff members of The Associated Press; and by Karoun Demirjian and Missy Ryan of The Washington Post.
A Section on 01/07/2019