The United States president, Donald Trump has lifted sanctions against Turkey that were imposed earlier this month after Turkey had agreed to a permanent cease-fire in northeast Syria, claiming that the U.S. was bringing peace to the region after decades of failed efforts.
Trump who cast the achievement as a victory of diplomacy said,
“Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand.”
Turkey and Russia had a day earlier to the cease-fire struck an agreement to jointly police a border zone in northern Syria and rid it of Kurdish fighters.
NEW YORK TIMES reports Kurdish-run ISIS prisons in northern Syria exposed an enormous humanitarian crisis. More than 150 children — ranging in ages from roughly 9 to 14 — with relatives tied to ISIS were jammed into two cells with little sunlight for months.
One boy asked: “What is going to happen to us? Are the kids going to come out?” (New York Times)