US national security adviser John Bolton said on Friday he would visit Turkey and Israel to coordinate on Syria, after President Donald Trump's surprise decision to withdraw all US forces from the war-torn country, AFP reports.
Bolton said he would head in January to both Turkey as well as Israel.
"We will discuss our continued work confronting security challenges facing allies and partners in the region, including the next phase of the fight against ISIS, as the US begins to bring troops home from Syria," Bolton tweeted.
Looking forward to visiting Israel & Turkey in January. We will discuss our continued work confronting security challenges facing allies & partners in the region, including the next phase of the fight against ISIS, as the U.S. begins to bring troops home from Syria.
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Trump unexpectedly announced last week he was pulling all 2,000 troops from Syria, declaring that the United States had achieved its objective as the Islamic State (ISIS) extremist movement had been "knocked" out.
On Wednesday, Trump was asked by reporters how the withdrawal from Syria would affect Israel and replied that "we give Israel $4.5 billion" security every year, and so "Israel will be very good" even after the US withdrawal from Syria.
"I spoke with Bibi. I told Bibi, you know we give Israel 4.5 billion dollars a year. And they are doing very well at defending themselves," the President said on the way back from a surprise trip to visit American troops stationed in Iraq.
He added that "I’m the one that moved the embassy to Jerusalem. I was the one who was willing to do that. So that’s the way it is - we are going to take great care of Israel. Israel is going to be good. We give Israel 4.5 billion a year. And we give frankly a lot more than that if you look at the books. They’ve been doing a good job.”
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made clear this week that the US decision to withdraw 2,000 troops from Syria “will not change our consistent policy: We will continue to act against Iran's attempts to entrench itself militarily in Syria, and to the extent necessary, we will even expand our actions there.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to meet next week in Brazil with Netanyahu in the wake of the Syria pullout decision.
