today.as they re spread across four countries. southeastern turkey, northeastern syria, northern iraq and northwestern iran. kurds make up 7 to 10 pes% of syria s population. 20% of turkey s and 15 to 20% of f iraq s population. the relationship between the syrian government and the country s kurdish population has as we ve been describing, been fraught before the civil war, many syrian kurds were denied citizenship but after the fighting began in 2011, they never sided with the rebels against the government and at time, they ve been willing to work with thevend government. kurdish fighters, the ypg, became a strong force because they filled the void left when government authority collapsed this large parts of syria. after isis took control of much of northern and eastern syria, the ypg joined with several local arab militias to form the
to end the quote endless and ridiculous wars. he also tweeted time for others this the region to pick up the fight and threatened to on literal turkey s economy if they do anything quote, great and unmatched limitsey to be b off limits. his words, not mine. brett slam med the move during n interview this dafternoon. just no way to run the country. i don t say that lightly. this is very serious. nobody knows what to do. i see the administration now scrambling to kind of make sebs of what s happening. the president s all over the place. his tweets indicate that he has no real idea or conception of what s happening on the ground and so nobody really knows where this is going. we took isis capital of raqqah without a single american live because the kurds did the fighting. if he thinks we can go back in, who s going to do the fight iin?
the kurds because they ve been responsible for bombings in l ankara and istanbul so for them, they re terrorists. we don t know if this will be a full scale invasion, but syria s ku kurds will fight but will be no match for turkey. turkey has air power tanks, all the weapons of a nato country of 80 million people. so these are mortal enemies and this willil be a blood bath. once the fighting start, i think the kurds will try to seek an agreement with president assad. that will link them up with iran and russia so president trump will have pushedru away his forr allies, the kurds, into the arms of his enemies and most importantly, it s very likely to lead to a resurgence of isis. it s the curds guarding around 10,000 isis prisoners. they re not going to do that muchno longer if they re being
prisons. angel is worry a new in syria could lead to a security vacuum that allows those prisoners to escape. they also control a camp home to more than 70,000 people. mostly the wives and children of isis fighters. joining me now to have a closer look at this, a foreign correspondent for the new york times who covers islamices extremism including isis and at the national security counsel. also served as spokesperson for the u.s. mission to the united nations. also a former treasury department spokesperson for terrorism and financial intelligence. brook, let s start with you and the isis part of this conversati conversation. president trump in his tweets dbt didn t express concern frd kurds as bill put it. are going to go after. he s concerned about watching over the isis fighters. tell me that part of the
a lot of people concerned that the kurds, who populate that area, were very helpful in the u.s. fight against isis but the tucks don turks see the kurds connected with a terrorist group inside of turkey that the turks don t like. even mitch mcconnell came out and say this is problematic. i ll read to you what he said. a precipitous withdrawal would only benefit the rashad regime, increase the risk of isis and terrorist groups regroup. i urge the president to exercise american leadership to keep together our multinational coalitions to defeat isis and prevent significant conflict between nato ally turkey and counterterrorism partners. in large part, not exclusively but in large part refers to the kurds. the sdf, both kurdish and fighting so valiantly against