President Trump on Monday spoke with a Kurdish leader at the Trump International hotel in Washington, D.C., where he expressed his fondness for the Kurds amid plans to pull U.S. troops out of Syria.
CNN reported that Trump assured Kurdish Leader Ilham Ahmed that he would not leave Kurdish fighters to be killed by Turkish forces.
“I love the Kurds,” Trump said, according to CNN.
{mosads}The news outlet reported that Ahmed, a Syrian-Kurdish politician, was at the Trump hotel meeting with congressional leaders when the president stopped by her table to speak with her. Trump was at the hotel for a fundraiser.
Ahmed told CNN that Trump’s comments were appreciated, but that she planned to meet with other administration officials and lawmakers to further discuss the troop withdrawal.
Trump abruptly announced in December that the U.S. had “defeated ISIS in Syria” and that American forces would return home.
The president and administration officials have since laid out conditions for a full draw-down of troops. National security adviser John Bolton earlier this month said the U.S. would not fully leave the country without the total defeat of ISIS and assurances from Turkey that it will not target Kurdish fighters.
Trump later tweeted that the U.S. would “devastate Turkey economically” if the country’s forces attacked the Kurds in Syria. Trump spoke to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the next day about the situation in Syria, among other topics.