Kurdish Officials Had No Advance Notice of Trump’s Syria Announcement

The political branch of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was blindsided by the Trump administration’s decision to hand over territory once occupied by ISIS fighters to Turkey, the National Interest has learned. The administration issued a statement on the decision Sunday night. By Monday morning, it became clear that many parties who were involved in carving out a safe zone in Northern Syria weren’t privy to the administration’s decisionmaking process.

“No body told us about this,” said Sinam Mohamad, the Syrian Democratic Council’s diplomat in Washington, in a text message. “We did not expect that this will happen because we [fulfilled] all the agreement points about the” safe zone.

Read the full story and more in The National Interest.