Turkey Advances into Syria after Trump Sanctions
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We ran the numbers: There are 609 news articles covering this topic. 27% (164) are left leaning, 44% (271) center, 29% (174) right leaning.
On Tuesday, Turkey advanced its invasion into northern Syria, after President Trumps decision to withdraw American forces from the region. Articles from both the left and the right question the wisdom of Trump’s hasty withdrawal of troops from Syria and focus on his recent move to impose sanctions on Turkey, and centrist articles investigate the implications of the move for the Syrian civil war.
A right-leaning article from Fox News reports that Turkey is now holding up to 50 US nuclear bombs “hostage” after invading Syria. The bombs had long been stored in Turkey, and officials are currently working on plans to extract the weapons from the control of Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan. The article also notes, “Russian military forces on Monday went to patrol near the Syria-Turkey border, indicating that Moscow is looking to fill a security vacuum following U.S. troops' withdrawal from the region last week.”
A left-leaning New York Times article focuses on Trump’s decision on Monday to impose economic sanctions on Turkey in response to Turkey’s invasion of Syria. The article notes that Trump has come under criticism for threatening Turkey with sanctions too late: critics feel that he should have begun pressuring Turkey as soon as he announced that the US would be withdrawing troops, before Turkey invaded Syria. Reporting from the left generally tends to focus on Trump’s impositions of sanctions on Turkey. It is unclear what Turkey must do in order to remove those sanctions.
A centrist article from The Hill focuses more on events on the ground in Syria, noting that Turkey has encroached even further into Syria in the day since the initial invasion. The article reports that the Turkish-backed Syrian fighters intend to continue their attack toward the flashpoint city of Manbij. The Hill explains, “Ankara is currently waging an offensive against Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria that it alleges are tied to an anti-Turkish insurgency.” The article also reports on the sanctions that Trump is imposing against Turkey.