On the eve of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit to Washington on Wednesday, former CIA Director James Woolsey told Newsmax TV that President Donald Trump has to be a peacemaker between the Kurds and Turkey.
"I think it's important for him to create a mood in which the Turks need us a lot worse than we need them," Woolsey told Tuesday's "Newsmax Now." "And he needs to, particularly, I think, try to preserve the interests of the Kurds because we really let them down a few weeks ago in essentially clearing the way for Erdogan to attack them."
Erdogan's visit to Washington is billed to discuss Turkey's "Operation Peace Spring" in northern Syria, where Turkish-supported Islamist forces are alleged to have committed war crimes.
Amid criticism President Donald Trump's Syria troops withdrawal opened the door for Turkey to move on its operation, Woolsey also said the U.S. needs to press Turkey to get back in good stead with the Kurds, who have fought alongside coalition forces in the operations to eradicate ISIS's caliphate.
"We need to get the Kurds back collegially with us," Woolsey told host John Bachman. "They will always – for a long time anyway – be at odds with the Turks over the land that both really claim – but we ought to try to calm things down as much as we can.
"And we especially oughta deter Erdogan from massacring Kurds in the way he has been."
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