Rand Paul Proposes U.S. Should Hold Talks with Syria and Turkey on Kurds

Oct. 17, 2019 (EIRNS)—Republican Sen. Rand Paul (KY) argued for the U.S. to get Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to begin cooperating to settle the issue of Kurds in northern Syria.

“The war is largely over, Assad stays,” Paul said, according to TASS yesterday

“So really, if we are going to be realistic about this and we want to protect the Kurds, maybe the diplomatic arena has got to be simplified. Now essentially you have Turkey on one side and Syria on the other.... I think somebody from the State Department that’s involved with diplomacy ought to be saying why aren’t we using our leverage to get Turkey and Assad to talk.”

He said the U.S. should

“acknowledge that someone’s got to talk to Assad. If we did, the goal would actually be to allow the Kurds to live in northeastern Syria, similar to the way the Kurds live in Iraq. It’s not always easy there, it’s been very messy and there’ve been a lot of problems. But currently, the Iraqi Kurds trade with the Turks and have a fairly decent and robust trade. Over the last ten years, it’s actually increased,”

the Senator underlined.

“I think we should look at it as an opportunity, as a breakthrough diplomatically,” Paul emphasized.