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
sdf. with help from a u.s.-led coalition, they drove isis from its territory, inclueing areas along the border and the de facto isis capital, raqqa. syria says ito feels threatene by advances made by syria s kurd. there s already deep seeded hostility between the government and population. in 1984, the kurdistana s work party, the pkk, which calls for kurdish aton autonomy, began an arms struggle that continues to this day. in the past 35 years, more than 40,000 people have been kill nd that struggle. now turkey considers ypg forces in syria to be an extension of the pkk in turkey, which it has declared to be a terrorist organization. in the meantime, syrian kurdish forces are holding more than 10,000 isis fighters, including 2,000 foreigners, in several
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
in syria as an extension and they have long maintained that in their mind, if you re the turkish government, the kurds are a bigger problem than isis ever was. that s true. and unfortunately, of the rou roughly 40,000 foreign fighters that joined isis, what we know is that almost all of them passed through turkey. through the istanbul airport unmolested. theyle went through that airpor and from there to the border and were allowed by turkish offic l officials or turkish r officials looked the other way as they crossed the border so the foreign fighter problem we have of isis members is a problem that was, that was in fact created in part by turkey. let me ask you about the u.s. involvement in syria. fight i fighting isis and the degree to which the fact that the kurds were there leading in many cases that fight. right.