Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threw a letter from President Trump urging him not to be a “tough guy” or a “fool” in the trash, according to the BBC.
In the letter, dated Oct. 9 in the wake of the U.S. pullout from northeastern Syria, Trump urged Erdoğan not to launch an incursion into the region against Kurdish forces that the U.S. had backed against ISIS. The Turkish president ignored the request, and Trump has since claimed the Turkish offensive “has nothing to do with us.”
{mosads}”President Erdoğan received the letter, thoroughly rejected it and put it in the bin,” Turkish presidential sources told the BBC, adding that he launched the invasion the same day.
The letter was made public Wednesday afternoon ahead of a scheduled meeting in Ankara between Erdoğan and a U.S. delegation led by Vice President Pence to attempt to broker a cease-fire.
“Let’s work out a good deal! You don’t want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of people, and I don’t want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy — and I will,” the letter states, citing sanctions on Ankara over the imprisonment of American pastor Andrew Brunson as a “little sample” of how the U.S. would respond.
Trump has denied the U.S. withdrawal served as a “green light” for Erdoğan to move into northern Syria, telling reporters Wednesday that Turkey has “been wanting to do that for years and, frankly, they’ve been fighting for many, many years.”