Envoy to US says Turkey was ready to provide ‘tens of thousands of troops’ for Raqqa offensive
Ambassador Serdar Kilic tells Al-Monitor that Turkey was willing to offer broad military support to the US-led operation to liberate the Islamic State's Syrian stronghold.
WASHINGTON — Turkish officials offered to provide "tens of thousands of troops" to support the US-led fight against the Islamic State (IS) during high-level talks last year regarding potential military cooperation in Syria, Turkey's envoy to the United States said today.
Ambassador Serdar Kilic told Al-Monitor that Turkish officials met with Pentagon commanders in July 2016, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Joseph Dunford, about military collaboration in Raqqa and throughout Syria. Kilic made the comments at an embassy press conference marking the first anniversary of last year's failed coup, which Ankara blames on US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom the Donald Trump administration — like its predecessor — has so far declined to extradite.
"Each and every time we made the [troop] proposal, we received the same arguments,” Kilic said, adding that the Pentagon preliminarily asked for 80,000 troops for the Raqqa operation, more than Turkish officials believed was needed. “We did not give any troop numbers because we did not get to the planning stage."
Defense Department officials did not respond to a request for comment.
