This archive report was first published on 8 November 2019.
On November 8, 2019, a report by The New York Times revealed that a US diplomat had faulted the Trump administration for not doing enough to prevent Turkey's Syria offensive.
According to the report, William Roebuck, the deputy envoy in charge of the fight against the Islamic State group, wrote in an internal memo that the United States 'didn't try' stronger measures to restrain Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Roebuck described Turkey's actions as an 'intention-laced effort at ethnic cleansing', which included abuses by Ankara's Islamist allies in Syria that 'can only be described as war crimes and ethnic cleansing'. He also expressed regret that officials did not do more to stop the offensive or speak out more forcefully against Turkey's actions.
State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus declined to comment on the veracity of the memo, but stated that the US had made clear its disagreement with Erdogan's decision to enter Syria and had taken steps to prevent the offensive.
Roebuck, a long-time US diplomat in the Arab world, has been in charge of on-the-ground coordination with Kurdish fighters in Syria, who bore the brunt of the US-backed campaign that crushed the Islamic State group.
